[1946Austin]

My neighbor and I got our Austin gassers out for a drive yesterday. It got cut short when he said his '48 started wandering all over the road. Took it back home and parked it, then today we took a look underneath at the steering to see what's up.
To our surprise when the wheel was moved back and forth the whole steering shft was moving inside the column! After closer look I realised the bearing race in the end of the GM tilt column had fallen apart and all the little balls were gone! The double D joint below it was wandering around like crazy!
Unfortunately it wont make the cruise tomorrow, but we'll tear the steering box and joint off Sun. to install a replacement bearing. Sad part is this was supposed to be a totally reconditioned and rebuilt column, so not too happy with the guy who sold it. Probably doesn't have 5 miles on the car.

 

[DaveS]

Bummer! At least you discovered the problem before something really nasty happened because of the loose column! Could have been one hell of a wreck!

 

[1946Austin]

Yeah, glad we found it, but sure wanted to have his car along today with our gasser group. We left the show early to go look at a guy's collection of old race cars and he would have enjoyed showing the Austin to him too. The guy had several Willys coupe race cars, a Willys PU truck, an Anglia, and I lost track of how many other old race cars and project cars. It was very cool to see all the classic iron!

 

[mt94ss]

Glad you are OK.

You are the happy wanderer... Vall-Da-Ree, Vall-Da-Rah...

Thump the guy a good one if you see him again. Fargin bastitch!

The collection sounds cool. Isn't it amazing what people have hiding around here? One of my neighbors, about a 1/2 mile away, has a collection of late 20's early 30's Packards and Deusenbergs. I went down his street by mistake one day and was amazed.

Mike

 

[1946Austin]

Here's an older picture of one of the Willys. It's headed to Eagle Drags this coming week: