I'm selling my house and the realtor strongly sugested moving my non-running 65 elsewhere.A friend offered to finish the car for me at his place... rebuild the rear and some misc. incidentals. To make this happen, we needed to straighten the car in the drive for the tow truck.

I had rebuilt the front end with a NAPA Quick Ratio PS box, 1 1/4" T/A sway bar, all new ball joints, idler arm, center link, Hotchkis springs, and energy suspension poly graphite bushings. The first rag joint broke when we were turning the steering wheel to straighten the car out in the driveway. This was a previously good ragjoint, but wasn't a new replacement. Replaced it with a new NAPA rag joint, and it too broke while attepting to steer the car. Nothing seemed to be binding when we had the front end in the air. I'm clueless as to what could cause this. The steering wheel takes a little effort to turn, but no more than I'd expect from a big block car with a PS box. Any suggestions as to what we should check? TIA Wes

Wes, my 65 has a 454 with power steering.
Pushed it around a few times no breakage. I bought my rag joint from Ground Up.

I am curious! What exactly broke.

The 1965 flexible coupling was a bit before my time, but I was the responsible engineer at Saginaw Steering Gear for the flexible coupling in the early 1970s. The production flexible coupling design was successfully tested in the laboratory at manual steering loads for thousands and thousands of cycles.

If you assemble a production flexible coupling correctly and tighten the production fasteners to the specified torques, it should never fail (or break) as you are describing.

Jay, I've pushed plenty of ps vehicles around the drive with out ever breaking the flexible coupler before. I'm not sure what could have happened this time.

JimL82, the coupler tore at a bolt hole in both instances. I didn't use a torque wrench, but I wasn't ham fisted on the bolts either. I've replaced rag joints in the past and never had a problem before. When turning the steering wheel, I didn't feel any bind from lock to lock. It did not feel any harder to turn than I remember a ps, non running wheel to be. Basically, all the wear parts, including the steering box are new/rebuilt. Any ideas of what I should check? Thanks again for the replies.

The production flexible coupling has stop pins that are hot riveted into the flange the attaches to the steering gear. The upper part of the stop pin should extend into window cutouts in the steering column flange. The stop pins hitting the openings in the column flange only allows the rubber coupling disc to be stretched so far. This prevents you from overstressing the rubber coupling disc.

The only time that I saw coupling discs that were ribbed was if they were very old and/or soaked in engine oil which deteriorated the disc due to age and heat. I never saw new ones ripped.

My guess is that you need an OEM flexible coupling.

Thanks Jim, I plan to double check everything, and I'll go with a new OE one when done. Wes

Any chance that you can take a picture(s) of the failed flexible coupling? You could eMail them to me or you could post them.

The flexible coupling is a critical safety part. I would like to figure out exactly why you had a problem.

When we designed the OEM steering parts, we always tried to make sure that there was a mechanical metal to metal backup system that could still steer the car. (Even if you disolved the rubber disc completely out of the assembly.) Things may get very loose and noisey but there would always be a lot of warning that something was not right.

Jim, I'll go over to my friends house this weekend. If he still has the parts, I'll post some pics. Wes

how U say--- something rotten in Denmark!

Originally posted by ac72rat:
how U say--- something rotten in Denmark! Pretty sure that rag-joint wasn't made in Denmark ;) Something rotten somewhere else...

K

Buy a rag-joint or r/j repair kit with a metal screen-wire reinforced rubber washer instead of a clothe fabric reinforced rubber washer!! BUT watch the screen-wire ends b/c they can get you like pins and needles!!

I just grind the washer's perimeter down smooth using my bench grinder so I don't get "gotcha'ed" by the little sticky buggers.

I just pulled an OEM one off my old '80 P/U and it is still, (as old and as beat up as it is), is FINE!! Heck, I'm going to reuse it!!!

pdq67

The wire screen in the Saginaw coupling disc is for electrical continuity. A plain rubber disc would isolate the steering column from ground and the horn wouldn't blow.

Early flexible coupling assemblies had a metal strap the connected across adjacent quadrants of the coupling. Later flexible couplings used a small wire with terminals on each end to do the same thing.

The screen was a cost saving and more reliable method of providing continuity. It didn't really add any structure or durability to the coupling.