A few years ago, I acquired two Corvair steering box's, one reversed one not. On the reversed box some dumbs**t welded a universal joint on it. (I was bigger than the shaft, so I guess he figured why not just weld it) I have taken the two and made one good reversed box, but would like to use the other at some point. My question is, can this be saved, or should I look for another box when the time comes? You can tell the shaft got pretty hot during the welding. There is enough material to have the splines re-splined. Are the splines on the end of the shaft enough and can I just do away with the others? IE have that part of the shaft turned down to remove the splines? Thanks.
In my opinion I wouldn't use it.There should be enough of those boxes around.I would use it for parts. . I bought 3 a couple of months ago.2 aluminium and one iron.2 of them had pitman arms and I paid $25.each and the one without pitman was $20. They were all in good usable condition.
Seeing how his welding is all but gone, it isn't an issue. My concern is the integrity of the surrounding metal. Agreed that they are still available and plenty, in some parts of the country anyway. I havn't seen them here that cheap, but havn't really been looking. The rest of it is in good condition and will save that, I just don't like throwing something out that may be usable.
The bead of his welding might be gone, but there is no telling what he did to it. Just because it looks solid I would not try using it...it is your steering. You need to know it is good.
My Grandmother used to say......."don't be pennywise and pound foolish".....I dunno for sure, but I think that could be applied here. In any case, I would throw that shaft away, not put it away, and never look back, for all the reasons stated in prior posts. If boxes can be bought for even $50, it's difficult to imagine there is any savings, much less any other sort of benefit, from reusing this abused part. If it was the last one known to exist and was absolutely needed, maybe salvaging it would make some sense. But none of that is the case here. Ray
Sorry to highjack this but I need the plastic wire cover that covers the Corvair steering column wires. I'm running the whole Corvair set up on my "T".They don't repop these. and the wires are just hanging. Any help? Thanks
Good point, I'm going to cut the end off before I throw it away and cut it in half and see just what it looks like. Thanks for all the replies.
You can donate the shaft to some club that make trophy's with car parts! It would make a sore looking body part Pete
Even if the part wasn't quenched there will be a heat effected area next to the weld. There is more going on here than just the quality of the weld. I'm surprised someone hasn't posted about how they have done this a hundred times, if you really know what you are doing the laws of physics don't apply to you, and everyone is concerned about nothing........ but maybe that guy just hasn't stopped by yet.
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