steering wheels can be tough

["Watry, Andrew (LNG-MBC)" <Andrew.Watry@domain.elided>]

I tried to take the steering wheel off my GTV yesterday, with no success.  I
have a normal puller, with 6 mm bolts and large-area washers to spread the
load.  I installed the puller, cranked down a bit on the bolt, and gave it a
couple good whacks, as recommended, which suprised me by moving the wheel
and inner steering shaft forward toward the plastic cover, to the point
where the steering wheel fouled the cover and wouldn't turn.  Knowing this
wasn't the way it was supposed to go, I removed the cover to find that the
upper steering column mount was cracked right through on the left side, at
the 8 mm pinch bolt (across from the ignition switch) that squeezes the
upper mount (which bolts to the body under the dash) against the outer
steering column tube.  I'd never had the cover off before, so I don't know
if this piece was already broken or if I did by whacking on the puller; I'd
guess I did it. A couple more (less forceful) turns on the puller didn't
free things, so I gave up.  I managed to get it all back together in a
reasonable enough way to drive, but I'm surprised to find this.

I've removed plenty of 105/115 wheels before, and had a few pretty tight
ones, but I've never seen this.  This is a U-joint steering-shaft box.  On a
soIid-shaft box, it seems to me that when you hit the puller, the impact
travels to the nut, wheel, then down the inner shaft, and is probably taken
by the ball bearings in the steering box proper, a pretty strong item. I've
hit some of those pretty damn hard without a problem.  On a U-joint shaft,
I'd guess the impact load doesn't travel all the way to the steering box,
and instead gets taken by the upper steering column mount. But I'd expect
the two big mount bolts (10 mm? they have 17 mm heads) rather than the pinch
bolt, to take the brunt of the force.  Maybe there's a different way you
have to do this on U-joint shafts?

Andrew Watry
Berlina Register
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