<VV> Steering Wheel "Clunk"

edward szuch egszuch at gmail.com
Thu Jun 3 20:27:11 EDT 2021


Hi Bryan, Mike, and Paul;
After I sent out my question on VV, I went back and looked at the '66
manual and the Chevy Assembly Instructions again.  I see what you mean
Bryan.  Kind of a funny design though to have a .005" - .030" clearance
controlled by a spring?  How do you have a variable clearance while under
constant spring tension?
I also remembered how hard it was to get the snap ring off the upper part
of the steering shaft and how much more difficult it was to get the snap
ring back on when I changed the switch.  I had to pull up really hard on
the steering shaft while trying to push the snap ring down and into the
groove.  This might have been due to the lower bearing spring pulling the
shaft away from me and the* tension issue Bryan is talking about.*
I do have some up and down play in the wheel, it doesn't seem excessive but
I need to measure it and see if I'm in the ballpark.
Looks like I'll be checking/adjusting the lower spring clearance to see if
that helps,  Big job for a simple turn signal switch R&R.

Thanks very much Bryan, Mike, and Paul!  Really appreciate the input.
Gary Szuch

On Thu, Jun 3, 2021 at 5:23 PM Bryan Blackwell <bryan at skiblack.com> wrote:

> Hi Gary,
>
> Our '66 had a strange 'looseness' in the steering wheel even after I
> rebuilt the box.  I couldn't figure out what the problem was until I
> happened to pull on the steering wheel doing a hard-harder test and noted
> there was about an 1/8" up and down of play.  If you look in the 66
> supplement in the steering section, you'll see there's a lower bearing and
> spring at the far end of the column, down at the toe panel.  The spring
> basically holds the whole thing in tension, and ours was too loose.  One of
> our club members had a couple columns, looking at his I could see that
> spring had just a tiny bit of space between the coils.  Following the shop
> manual I replaced the lower bearing parts, then assembled the column to
> within the specified .005 to .030" of axial play, and that solved the
> problem.
>
> --Bryan
>
> On Jun 2, 2021, at 8:44 PM, edward szuch via VirtualVairs <
> virtualvairs at corvair.org> wrote:
>
> I have a 66 Corsa that needed the turn signal switch replaced due to
> corrosion of the contacts.  I'm having trouble getting rid of a clunk that
> is heard and felt when I turn from one direction to the other during a
> parking type maneuver.  It seems to be coming from the top of the column
> where the directional switch attaches to the directional housing.  Looking
> at the shop manual, the upper bearing is in the switch so when steering
> inputs are transferred into the bearing and housing, the housing shifts on
> the outer mast jacket causing the clunk?
> I've tried shifting the switch/bearing up and down in the housing in the
> hole clearances to avoid an alignment bias without success.  I've tried
> different torques on the switch fasteners to allow some slight shifting of
> the assembly to avoid the clunk but nothing has worked.  I'm afraid to go
> too low for obvious safety reasons.
> Any ideas or experiences that might fix this would be appreciated.  The car
> has relatively low miles, 67,000 and all other components seem to be in
> good working order.  This only started after I changed the turn signal
> switch.
> Thanks very much!
> Gary Szuch
>
>
>


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