Did you remove the front seat?
Notes on replacing steering shaft firewall boot (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Pete483
- Start date
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Road Apple
SILVER Star
Why is it that these projects that should take 15 minutes always take me an hour or more? Trying to thread the final single bolt that holds the joint to lower half of the shaft to the joint I had issues. It kept feeling like it was cross threading. It took my much longer than it should have to realize I was installing it the wrong direction. Another one knocked off the list.
Do you have a part number handy for that one to look it up?
Actually kinda enjoyed this one. At a leisurely pace I did the rag joint and firewall boot in about 45 mins 
. Boot was gone and the rag joint was tired and cracked but not blown out. A noticeable improvement in the feedback in the wheel for about $100 is cool. Thank you to everyone who wrote this up!
. Boot was gone and the rag joint was tired and cracked but not blown out. A noticeable improvement in the feedback in the wheel for about $100 is cool. Thank you to everyone who wrote this up!
asutherland
VA7 HDT
I can confirm the steady bearing doesn't work on my 97 lx450. Like previously mentioned the shaft gets larger by a couple mm about half way to the firewall. So I just replaced the OEM boot instead.
That being said, I have a brand new bearing I can't use, if anyone wanted one I could sell it to them cheaper than new
That being said, I have a brand new bearing I can't use, if anyone wanted one I could sell it to them cheaper than new
Winter has just arrived out here in CO and prompted our nearby field mice to enter the warm-ish vehicle through this old, broken dust seal. So, I embarked on replacing the seal last weekend. I found the OP's procedure very straightforward. While doing this one I looked up and used my torque wrench to discover the job's torque specs:
Interesting discovery: The universal joint appears to be designed in such a way that even if both bolts came totally out of it, assuming the shaft bolt was still sound, I think the joint would still function and let you steer to safety. It looks like there would be plenty of extra play (you would know you had a problem here), but it does not look like you would actually lose your steering abilities. There are also lock washers installed on this joint, which would typically help prevent the hardware from loosening in the first place.
| Thing | Torque |
|---|---|
| Universal joint x Intermediate No. 2 shaft (the single bolt that holds the lower half of the joint to the shaft) | 25 ft-lbs (sourced from service manual) |
| Universal joint nuts & bolts (the two bolts and nuts that go through the rubber disk in the joint) | 18 ft-lbs (sourced from my torque wrench - min torque required to remove the bolts) |
| Column hole cover x Lower dust seal (the two bolts holding the seal to the firewall) | 52 in-lbs (sourced from service manual) |
Interesting discovery: The universal joint appears to be designed in such a way that even if both bolts came totally out of it, assuming the shaft bolt was still sound, I think the joint would still function and let you steer to safety. It looks like there would be plenty of extra play (you would know you had a problem here), but it does not look like you would actually lose your steering abilities. There are also lock washers installed on this joint, which would typically help prevent the hardware from loosening in the first place.
ppc
M Go Blue
Have you thought about the body flexing on the frame from a bad body mount. What happens in a frontend collision, or getting t-bone and loose all steering when it could have been possible to steer out of additional trouble. You would just be a pinball. Yes the design limits complete failure but a good owner should be inspecting and look for problems on the entire vehicle frequently. It's called preventative maintenance.
Outsane
Supporting Vendor
If any one would like the easy button on the steering shaft seal.
Here ya go
solvefunction.com
Here ya go
Steering Shaft Seal
Steering Column dust seal..this is to have a fix in 3 min. for 45292-35050 Is it still lazy if you take the the time to cad the design and print a fix...yes.. This is help cut down on noise, dust and hot air blowing into the cabin in a 10th of the time of a real repair. I opted for the easy...
solvefunction.com
