90 Cabby - spline back to no spline

Hi,

I know there are a fair few threads about steering spline adaptors, but I can't find anything that specifically covers this:

I am currently fighting to remove the adaptor on my Cabby…re-enforements, back up & cavalry have been sent for!! Once I get it off, can I simply stick on the new steering wheel (bought a Karman one)?? I've read stuff about springs, washers, circlips, etc being behind spline adapters.
So, do I need these things back on there to get the spacing to the boss right?

Any help appreciated.

Well yes and no, All depends on the wheel that you are getting.  The purpose of the Spring and suck is to keep the inner steering shaft tight against the bearings as they usually find with out of them was that the lower bearing fell out leaving a lot of in and out play with the wheel.

When going back I highly recommend that you use a Flat blade screw driver to the bottom u-joint, and a block of wood as a lever to hold with your foot as it makes the shaft stay in place and high enough to get the clip on without pushing the lower bearing out or compressing the collapsable inner shaft.

to get the outer spline off from what I understand is that you have to have the "special" pulley remover "IIRC" it was a 2 minute job with the right puller. I don't know if it was Faucet Handle Puller like,  that may work,,, and I don't remember the brand that they used….

But I know that it was really really easy with the right puller.

 

you need to use a plastic spacer instead of the spring.

https://www.classic-vw.co.uk/mk1-golf-steering-tube-spacer-171419549-4045-p.asp

Thanks for the info guys, much appreciated.

 

Ok, so still struggling to get the adapter off…might have to cut it!! I've had some force going through a puller and it just isn't budging!

 Question is: does the adapter hold the spring 'down'?
Looks like it does.

My wheel adapter on my 92,93 doesn't look like that.
I have the Airbag wheels…

Might be easier for your to source a early shaft from a Scirocco, or mk1

I also struggled to get mine off. What ended up working well was to put an adjustable wrench behind the small lip around the shaft adaptor and adjust the wrench to be really tight and then use a puller on the wrech. That way you have something substantial for the puller to grab on to.

All done! A £6 puller from eBay, with a small home made mod, did the trick. 
Bought the spacer that Sporttrucker suggested (thanks for the link buddy) but it doesn't seem right - very tight to go on; maybe needs greased? That would mean it would need pulled or cut off in the future. Anyways, left the spring in there, but practically no tension on it. 
No horn sounding when turning issues, so all good. Thanks for the comments all.

 

The spring keeps the Shaft in position and the upper and lower bearings in place.  The shaft is also collapsable that is it can slide down.

When I have been dinking on my shaft with the wheel off, I had to pull my shaft back out about 1/2 inch, then I had to re-engage the lower bearing to the outer shaft housing and hold it in place with a large straight-bladed screw driver wedged in to the u-joint, and a block of wood as the fulcrum to hold the shaft up.  

A quick way to tell is if you can pull out on the wheel a bit when the lower bearing is out you have as much as 1/2 to 1 inch of play in the wheel.  

On my 90's I couldn't get the spring to compress enough to put the "C" clip on it.

The purpose of the spacer is to keep tension between the shaft and the upper bearing race to hold the shaft in position and tight.

The Horn button is a complete circuit by the action of the wiper finger on the turn assembly and the main ground from the steering rack mount and the steering gearbox.

if your wheel isn't turning in the proper rotation but off then you get iffy connectivity between the wiper finger on the turns to the back of the wheel as it isn't running true but cattywhompus.

Here is the rack, and the issues I have seen.



Here is the switch off of a latter golf but the brass finger at the base is the horn switches finger wiper.



So you may want to see if you have in, and out movement of the shaft by pulling on the wheel.
This would indicate that the lower bearing is out of the race holding it into the outer shaft.

sporttrucker was correct. for non-spline adaptor cars pre-87, all you have is that plastic spacer, no spring. it may be tight fit as its brand new, bit of grease and job done

Hi Johnny,





I have an 89 cabby and I removed the spline adapter to fit a new steering wheel - cant remember when but it was quite a while ago e.g. over a year.





Everything was fine but recently my horn started to sound every now and then when I turn the wheel.





I can see from this posting and several others that the cause/fix for this might be to install the black plastic spacer (p/n 171419549) and, possibly the spring and circlip.





I do vaguely remember the spacer and spring when i was changing the wheel: I've found the spring so I obviously didn't install that and on the basis that I would have put the spacer in the same box as the spring and it wasn't there, i'm guessing I did install the spacer.





I can't find the circlip that is mentioned and I don't recall seeing one when I swapped the wheel.





Could the fact that I've not installed the spring and circlip be the cause of my horn problem?





Would I need the circlip if I do need to install the spring?





Does that circlip have a part number?…if not what specification circlip do I need please?


Thanks


Ben

hello there, with the small spline swap you either install the black plastic spacer on its own, or if you go the mk2 route you need the spring, metal spacer and lock washer from a pre-88 mk2 golf.

first thing is pop the wheel off and check whats going on, might be spring tab is bent or one of the screws on the stalks is loose