Urethane Steering Coupler

[Miles]

I recently bought a urethane steering coupler. The dealer I bought it from has informed me that the manufacturer included metal bushings with IDs that are too large. Sure enough comparing the ID of the metal bushings to the bolts that hold the coupler together shows that the ID of the bushing is way bigger than the bolt diameter. Has anyone else run into this? Or is this normal? I don't want to install the bushing only to have it slop around due to the large bushing ID.

 

Thanks

 

Miles

[Guest zfan]

I got mine from MSA and it was not real loose but had some play and did make a difference in steering response.

 

Mike

[Lockjaw]

I like the plastic one from Nismo. My urothane one sort of disintegrated one day while I was driving, which was not fun.

[Guest Anonymous]

I do not see any practical purpose why the bushings are larger Take it back.I have heard that polyurethane bushings some times have no quality control from some manufacturers.

[Guest silverbullet]

I also had this problem with one that I bought from Victoria British it has the same exact problem, holes and bushings to big for my bolts, I tried to explain the problem to them in great detail(this was about eight years ago) but it seems they were incapable of understanding anything other than "would you like to make an order today?" so they sent me another one exactly the same, so to this day I still have two sets of useless urethane steering couplers sitting on the shelf. I never installed them because I felt that it would be unsafe.

[Guest Anonymous]

Any way to "bush" the holes with some kind of tubing ?

[fl327]

the energy suspension poly coupler i bought had these sleeves that went into the bores, and it worked good, but i went to abs plastic because that what was in before the poly and when i had poly felt it was too soft.

[CruxGNZ]

I agree with LEN168, the plastic gives a better "feel" of the road.

 

!M!

[Miles]

Thanks for all of your input. The company I bought the coupler from has provided conflicting stories about the bushing ID being too large. Based on the input from you folks I am going to go with an ABS plastic coupler from Energy Suspension.

 

Miles

[TomoHawk]

Why don't you just make your own out of ABS plastic, aluminum or even titanium?

[blueovalz]

Heck, you don't even need it at all. I used a 1/2" aluminum spacer between the two shafts (or joints) on either side of the coupler. Then I found that the shaft slides out of the steering column with enough spline length that the spacer was unnecessary, so I just bolted the steering column joint directly to the steering shaft that then goes to the rack joint, thus eliminating the coupler all together. The only thing is that the steering wheel will have to be removed and re-installed 90 degrees to what it was before removeal of the coupler. Here is the picture of the spacer, before it was altogether removed completely and the two steering pieces bolted together without the spacer.

[ZR8ED]

My solution was even easier!

 

Ya see to be a Canadian without owning a couple of hockey pucks is an federal offence.

 

I picked this up from a GT2 racer. He removed his rubber coupler from his Z and used a new NHL regulation hockey puck. Yup that is what I said.

 

Works great, and I've been using one for almost 10 years now.. and plenty of track time as well... Zero probs or concerns.

 

And I always have a puck to display if the police ask where my regulation puck is!

 

BTW just use the old coupler as a template, and drill some holes..

 

Low budget eh? crazy right?.. YOU BET!!

[Bob_H]

So Terry, how much vibration/feedback did you gain by removing the coupler? I have a urathane one right now, but... I know yours spends many hours in the grarage being fabricated upon....

Sorry.

Just wondering on the vibration, etc..

-Bob

[Pop N Wood]

I have the MSA one. I think it is solid plastic. Probably one of the best mods I did to the suspension. Took all of the slop out of the front end and made turning lock to lock in a parking lot MUCH easier. The difference in turning effort was really quite remarkable.

 

Didn't notice anything in the way of vibration. Certainly anyone with stiffer springs, bigger sway bars or coil overs would think nothing of this. The only real difference is hitting a pot hole definitely tugs on the steering wheel much harder. But the positive control is preferrable to me.

 

The plastic ones are completely solid. Makes a lot of sense to just remove it altogether. For the same reason I don't see what difference the bolt hole size would make. At least on mine nothing moves anyway.