Spring hat

[Kershaw]

http://i.imgur.com/lMlAyId.jpg

The flex disc seems fine to me, right?

The u joint did have a bunch of axle grease in it. I cleaned it out with brakekleen and then pb blasted everything for lube and protection. I didn't drive it so I don't know if it did anything.

[2002tiiguy]

Dunno, you could ask them, I needed a rack so I just sucked it up and paid for it, needed my car back.

[Kershaw]

I did, I called them and they said they'd call me back. That was yesterday, haha. If the rack is coming out, it's definitely an excuse to replace the PS reservoir and lines, so that would be nice.

I'll put the tires back on today and drive it around. Maybe cleaning out the u joint helped.

[2002tiiguy]

you know what, i completely forgot, my steering u joint bound up on me really badly a while back, i just kept spraying pb blaster at it until it loosened up, kinda forgot about it really

[Kershaw]

Yep, that's what did the trick. Steering was fine today. Nice and light. PB blaster to the rescue!

I guess I'll have to remember to do this every 6 months or so.

[2002tiiguy]

Lol, i have a box of grease fittings here at work, im considering drilling holes and tapping it

[Kershaw]

Now that I think about it, I'm fairly certain this problem has come up at least once a year. I wonder why it's never a problem in some e30s (never been an issue in my prior 7) but it's a recurring issue here.

It also could be my steering wheel bearings, because I hit those with PB blaster too. I'm not sure which of the 2 bearings or u joint was actually the issue. Could have been all 3 though.

[Kershaw]

So I'm circling back to this issue. Every fix seems temporary. I threw my spare steering u joint into a tub of purple power for a few days to clean it up. Now it doesnt rotate smoothly. I pb blasted that for lubrication, but when I do it looks like it has blood running out of it. I thought this things were supposed to be sealed? I assuming that's dried up grease that the purple power didn't remove. Is there really no way to regrease this thing?

If not, looks like I need to buy another u joint.

[nando]

It's probably worn out, unfortunately. I think the ix u-joint sees more abuse due to the increased work it has to do.

[Kershaw]

I just looked at it again with more light. I can definitely see the ball joint. That's supposed to be fully sealed with a rubber boot, right? Just like the tie rod ball joints?

[Kershaw]

Where's my collar nut? Everything online said it's right before the firewall. The Bentley was useless too.

[nando]

I think it's in the engine bay on the ix. the steering guibo is on the inside on an ix. I believe this was true on both airbag and non-airbag, but it's been a long time since I had my '88 parts car..

[Kershaw]

The guibo is in the engine bay but there's no collar nut there either.

[2002tiiguy]

snap ring it looks like http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...diagId=32_0447
#13

[Kershaw]

I'm supposed to remove the snap ring and push the steering shaft up into the interior?