Steering column help

Hi, hoping someone can help me with this before I spend a load of money on unnecessary parts!

Car is an 87 Gti cabby and the steering column is rattling and banging over rough roads. I’ve stripped it down to component pieces and I think I might be missing some parts. The only parts on the column are the lower bearing, tension spring and thrust washer. Do I need the lower needle bearing and lower bearing race? As far as I can see they have never been there!

The top bearing in the steering lock is knackered so I will replace this along with the plastic support ring and new 45mm adapter sleeve as this took a beating whilst taking it off. Do I also need the plastic spacer sleeve? Again, as far as I can see it’s never been there but who knows what might of happened with the previous owners!

Any help would be great

Right, now it’s becoming a painGot the bearing race, needle bearing, plastic spacer and column support ring and none of it fits!!!
The column is way too large to fit the race onto it which means the needle bearing won’t fit either, the support ring won’t fit into the top spring and the plastic spacer is totally redundant as it won’t fit either!

What is going on? I checked the website diagrams and made sure I ordered the parts to fit a Golf Cabriolet but they all seem wrong? They must fit to a much smaller steering column I guess but I thought all golf cabriolets would have the same columns?

Please help if you have any idea as I’m totally stuck now!

Kinda getting a bit lost with your descriptions, are you able to post some images?

By chance I'm in the throws of overhauling my '83 tin tops steering column today.

If as you think your later Cabbies column is different that'll not be much use to you, but you never know either.

I'm going to have a look at 7Zap later and can maybe stick up some images of my own (now in bits) tomorrow, but it'd be helpful if I could see some of yours as well.

According to 7Zap the first image below is for an '88 Cabbie, and the second is for mine, an '83 Tin Top.

Insofar as the steering column parts are concerned (and they are to be believed), the only differences are the addition of the upper spring and small to large spline adapter (7A and 7B).

I don't have PAS so parts 10 and 11 aren't applicable to me.

What parts should you have that you believe are missing?

7Zap '88 cabriolet - https://volkswagen.7zap.com/en/rdw/golf+cabriolet/goc/1988-44/4/419-104000/

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I'm surprised that worked! That image is of all the parts of my steering column. So from the top down is the 45mm adapter, spring, plastic column spacer ring. Then at the bottom is the thrust ring, lower bearing and spring.

In this picture the white part is the lower needle bearing and the silver part is the bearing race. The race simply won't go on to the column as it is far to small to go over the splined end which then defeats the objective of the needle bearing!

Yours is quite different to my set up, that 7Zap schematic for the '88 Cabbie is very misleading.

It's a good representation of mine, but not yours.

Does that flat sided part you have rested the race on come out of the larger section of the column, telescopic like?

If so maybe it's put on from that side of things?

It's all very confusing!
I think it's a collapsible column but there is no way the race will ever go on. I've seen a YouTube vid of the race and bearing going on but it's for the American market and is nothing like mine! It seems like the lower needle bearing needs pressing in to the bottom of the column tube but that would be impossible because the tube is not removable.
I'm pretty sure the bearing in the steering lock is knackered anyway but can't get a replacement part for 10 weeks!

Just seems odd that all the diagrams I've seen have loads of parts to them and yet my column only has a few of those parts and does not resemble any diagram, even started looking at mk2 golf columns to check but they are very different!

Not being much help I afraid, unless I've something physically in front of me to look at and play with I struggle!

Again maybe of no use, but this guy (USA, so maybe different from yours) used to sell upgraded races and there's a 'how to' of images on his site explaining fitment, might shed some light on things?

https://mk1engineering.myshopify.com/products/vw-mk1-rabbit-scirocco-cabriolet-steering-column-rebuild-kit
 

Yep I almost bought those parts but it's the same parts you can get from vw heritage! The only part that fits is the white plastic column support ring.

I've already spent £200 on parts that don't fit so I might as well buy a load of other stuff and see what I can come up with! I might try changing the top spring that fits next to the adapter as there are 2 different ones! 

It's really annoying when you get the parts that are listed to fit a cabby from 1979-1993 and yet they don't fit at all🙄

As soon as I get the new steering lock part I will do a little guide on the parts needed and how it goes together but I am a little surprised that no one else has had a similar problem!

Do you have PAS?

I've found images of your steering column, (the bare shaft part that you can't get the race over the end of),  and they don't show one fitted.

The different US version seems to accept the race with no issue (from what little I've read), I'm speculating their cars would probably mainly be PAS?

Could it be there's a PAS / non-PAS shaft, if you do have PAS and assuming it was from factory it may be that for some reason you've had the non-PAS one fitted.

My understanding is the race has been NLA for a very long time and after market alternatives are quite expensive… might have been motivation for someone to change over to the cheaper / alternative shaft in the cars past life which is why nothing adds up to the way it should?