Steering coupler warning

Not mine but check this red urethane coupler aka "rag joint" out.
Check and see what you may have .
OE reinforced rubber is best. ~Alan


http://buggymeister.com/webgallery/showphotos/463_6735b783bec41e6486457fa92c2a481e.jpg

Wow, I'll have to check mine. I'm hoping that was from some really frisky driving.

~WB

I have that on mine........

One more week of spirited driving and mine woulda done "THAT"
Caught it just in time, real reason going"down under" was to grease up the tors.

I ordered one from M&T in Kingston RI. TC , had any dealings?
They told me the part had the "fibers" sticking out the side, otherwise woulda gone elsewhere.
Well it gets here and SHAZAM, no fibers. Even made an incision to see if they were molded over .Nyet. assholes

Installed it anyway. Its not urethane so I'll replace it next year, Its got so much flex the horn pulses onoff every driveway swale


Those DIY'ers out there who are thinking, "just make one outa cut up tire and it'll last forever"; Dont do it with a steel belted. Reason being your HORN button wont work
anymore !

M&T used to deal mostly with convertible top part and pieces, didn't know that they've extended into general parts.

I totally agree, there's NOTHING better than the original German made rag and rubber joints, they last a lifetime. The All rubber ones made in India are better than the urethane ones at least, but those pretty red urethane suckers are just too brittle. Same with the bushings really.

They look sharp, but will almost shatter under a hammer blow. Too bad . . .

Same with tranny mounts too. I've shattered a set of those.

Yeah, the red motor mounts are really crap. I destroyed 2 sets of them before I finally got the message. Slow learner I guess. I also don't care for the red torsion tube parts either. Other than squeeks I have not had one of those fail, but I have removed them from my current chassis and installed German OEM....looks better too....

While checking the steering coupler... aka rag joints, take a close look at the welds on both ends of the the column crush cage. These are usually donor items that are old and don't get a close inspection. I had two all of a sudden ...snap. ~Alan

Anyone want to comment on how much angular distortion the good rubber joints can stand? I slanted my whole steering column about 1.5 inches (at the under dash mount) left to get the steering wheel centered in front of the drivers seat. The driving position is now very good.

I'm keeping a close eye on the coupler. Nothing evident in a few thousand miles so far.

It's not the angular distortion of the coupler, with a a misaligned column it's the constant pressure on the shaft's crush cage that will get you . I had one snap and discovered that when I had attached the column bracket to the underside of the dash I used an air ratchet and ran the nut up the bolt w/o realizing I was putting lateral pressure on the crush cage ..
~Alan

The blown one I removed last week was urethane,
It had the VW logo and the name "HEXED".
Be sure to insist on VISIBLE fiber reinforcement.

Hi David K.

Did you take your speedy up north? You have gone fishing right?

Keep well and let us know when you return to San Diego.

Cheers
Dave

When I did my rack conversion I changed all that to a stock super beetle type setup'

So that's not a problem any more. But I'm now happier that I changed it.

Well there's yet another red urethane joint that came apart, check what you have ....