Gordon,

I had that experience of changing the coupling a while back. Were we supposed to be able to get in there with both arms  and nuts and bolts and tools etc.??? Not!!

My column was off so I was up until 4:00 AM trying to get it into place. Finally aligned the steering box correctly and that was much smoother.  Still a PITA.......

Hey!  Missed you at Paul Russells!  Met John from Rye, NH over at a TYP356ne member's house for a great BBQ after the shop visit.  Don't know which was better - Paul Russell's shop or the member's house on a tidal marsh in Ipswich!

"While I was in there, I found a few other things I could "fix", just because I was there."

Gordon, this is how the overused phrase: "Just don't go there!", originated.

Don't go.......don't look.......don't fix.

Voila! No problem.

"...especially if there is a tad of negative clearance meaning that the steering column might be too far forward by 1/8" or so and pushing the coupling surfaces too far together, but who's measuring?  Besides, it's supposed to flex, right?..."

Could this caused by shims on the top tube of the beam? I've always wondered what sort of issues I've created in my steering column when I added those suckers in there.

T

OK, now I'm REALLY pissed....

Even after I "fixed" the steering coupler by rotating the silly bolt heads to get a bit more room between them and the opposite coupling flange, it STILL would beep the horn as I rotated the steering wheel around - it seemed to be worse when sitting on the wheels.....When it was up on jack stands it didn't beep as much, maybe because I wasn't flexing it as hard, but I could still get it 'just so' and make it beep by applying fore/aft pressure to the steering wheel at around 2 o'clock.   WTF?!?!?!?!  

ah,HA!  It's something in the steering column!  

So I spent the better part of two hours tearing the upper steering column apart and rebuilding whatever looked as though it needed it, which was exactly.......   Nothing.  Everything looked fine.  I mean, really fine.   After all, I had just rebuilt everything a year ago.

So I took the Star Trek approach of the logical Mr. Spock:

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

And all that was left was that silly steering coupler that I had just installed yesterday.  

A Brand New One.

From SoCal Imports!

So out came the 14mm wrenches, again, and out came the new steering coupler, again, and I took a damn good look at it, comparing it to the original 1969 one I took out.

They were different, and the years had NOT improved the German design.  Remember, I have a 1969 donor VW.  The original coupler is a rubber donut with four holes, each with a tubular spacer through each hole so that when they're installed you can only compress them just so far, since the spacers limit the compress dimension when the bolt is tightened.  All that's in there are the spacers - it's very simple and effective.  The mounting flanges and washers on the bolts keep everything captive once assembled.  It even has a VW part number stamped into it, which I just ordered from Bug City.  It looks like this:

http://vwparts.aircooled.net/S...17-p/211-415-417.htm

The NEW donut I had bought (from SoCal Imports, IIRC) has the same four holes, but on this one they've installed spacers that look like a really big "pop" rivets that are pushed through the hole and then a washer is slipped over the far end and then the whole thing is crimped like a rivet to hold it in place (like the through-bolt wouldn't do that anyway).  The tube looks to be metric, close to 5/16" or equivalent, but the OD of the collars pushes it out to over 3/4" and THAT is what was making contact with the steering box shaft.  It looks just like THIS one, and quite a bit different from my original:

http://www.socalautoparts.com/...l-reinforced-p-12920

After all of the nagging some of us do on this site to "buy German", when I took a good look at it I think it is just rubber and not layered with fabric (the so-called, "Rag Joint") so maybe THAT is why I didn't install it over a year ago (it's a bitch getting old).

Anyway, preliminary testing tells me that it is probably, miraculously, cured, although I was so disgusted (again, today) that I headed to the house around 4pm, skipping the usual 4pm Earl Gray Tea Time and grabbed a bottle of Pinot Noir.  Who friggin knew?  I spent an entire afternoon in absolutely GORGEOUS friggin weather in June in New England, where we only get five weeks of summer, anyway, and could have been riding my bike instead of screwing around with a cheap, friggin, Chinese part, only to find that it's never gonna work in MY car!

I hate Chinese parts........

There, there Char... I mean Gordon.  At least you did spend the last several evenings in a hot, humid garage with a heat index in triple digits trying to get a windshield that I SWEAR (lots of swearing, actually) was made for a different car to fit and hopefully keep some of the rain out.  

So.....Do you think it's the parts we're dealing with, or our superb techno-mechanical abilities?

The correct answer is "yes".

Ted, I hope you didn't put the shims under the top tube of the beam. They go under the bottom tube, which makes the beam tilt backwards, increasing caster.