Steered in the Right Direction

As you may recall, I had some issues with the Mini's steering at the beginning of the year. Recently, the symptoms returned. To reiterate, the steering column has a spline shaft (with serrations, or ridges, around the inside of the shaft) at the bottom end. This female end joins with a male spline shaft that extends from the steering rack (under the car) through the floor board. The two pieces are held together with a bolt through a clamp on the column. So I removed the column and examined the spline shaft. Once again, it was quite worn. The splines on the rack looked okay.

I mentioned it to David and he came up with a solution. I let him know the specs of the spline shaft (36 serrations, 9/16" diameter) and he was able to source a piece with which to replace the original. I forgot what this piece is called, but it's the jointed piece in the photos below. The three photos show the progress of how he welded this piece onto the steering column.





The whole ensemble simply slips onto the steering rack. It certainly looks much more durable than the original setup, and the way it clamps to the rack is much stronger. This all assures me that my steering problems are solved for good.