Steering colum uj's
Turbo Mini Forums

Evening gents.

Im having trouble with my Colum on the mini, it seams the UJ's are having a tight spot when turning the wheel, this obviously makes for a horrible and not very nice feeling. Ive put a pic below, there is the obvious uj at the rear of the second rose joint and then one off the rack behind the brake pedal .

Now since the pic I have dramatically reduced the angle by lengthening the last rosejoint and removing the nut on the front one so I have a lot less angle on that uj !!, but !! its still tight .

Any ideas on something I could maybe replace them with ??, I really don't want to be cutting and altering the frame if poss ?

Thanks rick

How about bringing the rear rose joint down a bit?

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Nothing is impossible it just costs more and takes longer.

Have you put the UJ's opposite by 90 degrees? The cyclic variation of a UJ increases with the angle it's placed at, but by using two 90 degrees apart this variation is effectively cancelled out

Simon, I have lowered that rear joint and although it has reduced the angle its no better and also faces the steering wheel at the sky. lol

Benjy , thanks for the advice, I do think they are already opposite but I will check tomorrow.

Rick

Is it the pic or are the joints not inline.?

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Nice foot rest

How about fitting a bracket between the two rod end mountings bosses with a third boss in it so you can move that forward most rod end further into the cab enabling you to move the UJ aswell reducing the angle. Ofcourse you will need to play with the lengths of the column sections

Edited by paul wiginton on 27th Jul, 2013.

I seriously doubt it!

I agree with Paul. I am seeing too much (unsupported) shaft between the steering wheel and rearmost rose joint, so fix by moving both roses back, and then you'll have more room to optimize the uj's
If you really want that high and horizontal of a steering column, you might want to look at more uj's or doing something different with the steering rack, like divorcing the tie rods from the rack and mounting the rack up higher.

Gents , are we saying move both roses towards me to drop the angle of the top uj.

Benyj both uj's at at oposite angles to eachother so should in theory do what your saying .

Graham yes the top bar is straight in front of me but when it gets to that top uj it angles across aswell as down to the rack.

Im going to have a go at twisting the rack upwards a bit more which wil help straighten the bottom uj but that isnt really the problem as its not that tight

Yes. Right now you can clearly move both roses towards the steering wheel (you should have the rearmost one as close to the wheel as possible regardless just because cantilever shafts are bad practice). This might allow this to work (by twisting the rack down) but i still think you'll need to play with the rack if you want to keep the near horizontal column

Also, do you have a uj at the rack? I can't tell from the pic. This is essential, otherwise that (near vertical) shaft will be very difficult to set up.

Dave, yes there is a uj at the rack.

Update, uj's on hold at the moment, tracked the crap feeling down to a fooked steering rack !!!, Its a shame but it was a new quick rack from minispares many years ago.

Im hoping we can just rebuild it and it will be fine , then il see how the uj's fair after that.

Thanks rick

At least you have found something mate, it would be a shame if you had to start cutting the frame about.

Definitly tom. the hope now is that when the rack is sorted the uj's will be less of a problem and can live with it

rick