A little quirk when making successive mods

I found a little quirk yesterday. History first. I put a jeep intermediate shaft in the steering a couple of years ago to minimize slop. Then last winter I installed a replacement LO5 engine, and the installation included some mods, including a set of shorty headers. No big deal right?

Recently I replaced the steering column with one from a FW. I noticed that it was about 3/4 of an inch longer...no big deal right?

The longer FW column required me to collapse the jeep shaft a little shorter, and the nylon pieces inside of the jeep shaft no longer engaged the outer tube, so I got a little play. My next brain storm was to put an OEM intermediate shaft back in the car. I just happened to have a really nice like new one on the shelf. So out came the jeep shaft, and now comes the issue. I went to put the OEM shaft in, and the plastic shroud will not pass the header at the front A arm mounting stud. Oh fun. I tried a few different directions, and the plastic shroud will not go in no matter what I do. I did not want to put the shaft in without the shroud, because it exposes the rag joint, that we all know it is the weak point, so I have an issue. Well, I ended up cutting about 4-5 inches off of the shroud, and then it went in. The intermediate shaft is bare at the brake lines, and close to them, but they are protected by a wire wound around them, so it is not a big risk. The steering lost the play, so all is good.

All this to tell you that if you have shorty headers on an LO5, and you have the OEM intermediate shaft in the car, you may not be able to get it out without removing the header, the front upper A arm stud, or figuring out how to cut the shroud off with almost no clearance. Another issue might rear its ugly head if you want to replace the A arm. You are guaranteed to have to remove the A arm stud to get the arm out (I remove both studs to remove the A arm anyway). These cars are always finding ways to confound the owners. This is just one more on the list of quirks.

I admit I cross posted this on ISSF. I put this in suspension, because it is more of a steering issue than anything else.

Tale your own advice Fred.

Smack it with a bigger hammer.  

It already needed replaced, so the hammer was not an option.

Would that be covered under "if it breaks, it needed replaced anyway." ?

It did not break, it just no longer fit in the reduced space due to the modification. A hammer is for things that are installed and do not work. In this case, you have to go to the military saying; cut to shape, pound to fit, paint to match. I got to pass on the pound to fit and paint to match.

Speaking of quirks with your wagons Fred, haven't seen an update on the leak that you've been fighting for years.

Tom

I think I addressed it on here somewhere. I finally found it. I sealed everything I thought could leak, and it still leaked. I took it to a garage, and they ran water over the car and it leaked...surprise, surprise, surprise. But that did not tell me much. The garage thought it was at the windshield, but I was not sure, as I had it replaced about 2 years ago, and the guy did a good job, because I watched and helped. I decided to narrow the possibilities down a bit, and made a 10 inch three chamber dam from modeling clay with a small gap along the front of the windshield on the cowl sheet metal. I sealed the chambers from each other, and poured water in them. The middle one drained almost immediately, and a small amount of water entered the car. That told me where the leak was (the garage was right about the windshield), so I cleaned the area with acetone, and used a little window urethane I had left over from the rear quarters. I paddled it in with a small spatula up to the edge of the window glass, and about 8 inches on both sides of the leak area. The leak has stopped. I now have a dry floor in the passenger's side of the car. If the windshield is not sealed in that area, the cover for the fresh air intake acts like a dam, and holds the runoff from the windshield against the urethane under the glass. It puts enough pressure on the unsealed area to force water under it, and into the interior.