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MG TD TF 1500 - Steering column coupler

While making a right hand turn I heard a click and found my steering wheel locked in one position. Fortunately, I was only going 5 mph and had room to stop safely. Investigation revealed 2 of the 3 coupler bolts missing! I was lucky to be off the 4 land road. I had 2 bolts in the glove box that I was able to use to get the coupler working and drive home.
The nut on the remaining shoulder bolt is some weird type of lock nut that did't do it's job. I used loc-tite on all the nuts when I reassembled it.
I would strongley recommend checking for loose nuts on all your steering parts as well as loose nuts behind the wheel! LOL

Good Luck Chuck
cj schmit

Chuck, there should have been cotter pins in the castle nuts on the ends of the bolts. Thank goodness this didn't happen on the highway. Moss sells a complete kit of bolts, washers, rubber, nuts, etc. (264-368). Bud
Bud Krueger

Bud
I have the same type lock-nuts as Chuck, on my TD, with no cotter pins on mine...Have never had a problem...
The bolts are shouldered, and obviously the correct size, and length...There is no provision on either the bolts or the nuts, for cotter pins.
My grommets are in very good condition, and the bolts fit very tightly....
Evidently, a PO had purchased replacement bolts, and these are what were supplied.
Edward
E.B. Wesson

Okay, I'm stretching the OF memory banks. I recall that original hardware was unique in that the three holes in the Steering Pinion Shaft Flange were threaded to accept and tighten upon the Column to Flange bolts. In addition to that, the bolts were drilled through and the Flange Bolt nuts were castle nuts. Proper assembly would have the bolts tightened into the flange and then have the nuts tightened to the nearest castle tower to allow insertion of cotter pins.

Over time I've seen people strip/drill out the threads in the flange and depend only upon the nuts to secure the steering column. This has led to the use of lock nuts instead of castle nuts.

This is very similar to the recent trend toward the use of Nylocs in place of cotter pins for main and rod bearing caps. Bud
Bud Krueger

Moss now supplies only locking nuts with their repair kits ].
see here:

http://www.mossmotors.com/graphics/products/PDF/264-368.pdf

Jim B.
JA Benjamin

My coupler has the castle nuts with split pins. PJ




P Jennings

Nice write up from Moss, I've not seen it before.

It is pretty obvious when you think about it. The original threaded 'elephant ear' flange was very thin... but you were supposed to lock the nut against the thread in the flange to hold everything in place. The proper pocedure was to fully seat the shoulder against the flange, if you couldn't match up the cotter hole without undo torque on the locking threads (guess which ones will give first!) there was no adjustment between the two. In order to get the hole in the shouldered bolt in the right orientation (not aimed at the boss of the flange) you might have to swap the bolts around until everything balanced out between the threads, the holes and the flange.

No wonder so many are stripped.

I don't agree that driving without the threaded flange is going to cause problems. The same result can be achieved without the threaded flange (I elected not to reweld and rethread Tommy's flange as the holes were a snug fit on the threaded shank)) simply by tightening the nut against the bushing and the shoulder and then cottering the nut in place. If the holes become wobbly with time, I'll address it then with new shouldered bolts and repaired flange. But in 18,000 miles of hard driving, no problems to date.
Dave Braun

My threads were definately gone. I'm with Dave at this point. With no treads to worry about I was able to hold the nuts and really torque the shoulder bolts. I'm going to look for a suitable shoulder bolt with a 3/8 inch threaded portion and use larger O.D. nuts to keep the bolts from moving as much. I'll let you know what I come up with.
cj schmit

This thread was discussed between 07/05/2012 and 08/05/2012

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