Steeringshaft rubber through bulkhead 420 SEAC is gone

[cantus]

Hallo fellow wedge owners,
I do have a lot of radial movement on my steering shaft at the bulkhead.
Half of the rubber is gone.
Can anyone tell me where its from or where to buy it ?

greetings from the Netherlands
Wim Waardenburg

[Grady]

The bulkhead bushing a 280, 350, etc. (so I'd assume a 420) is a circular plastic part that dissolves with time. The proper repair is a solid bushing.

There are numerous threads with the suppliers, part numbers and assembly instructions. Here are a couple:

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=5&...
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Fairly easy to do but you may have to remove the steering wheel and shaft to squeeze into the foot well. (I did anyway.)

Grady

[KKson]

Hi. As Grady says original bush is a bit of plastic which TVR Parts sell for a few quid. If you slacken the steering column adjuster, loosener and remove the first UJ in the wheel arch you can slide the column inner shaft inside the car to swap the bush. Its a 30 minute job. The upgrade is to use a proper lower roller bearing which takes a few hours but it will last for years.

[adam quantrill]

I'm just about to do mine, I'm going to use https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/bearing-units-flang... The shaft on mine is the triangular type and it might need 3 notches filed in the inner cylinder to take it if it's a bit tight, but I prefer this to the larger inner diameter of the next size up.

[Englishman]

I just replaced the 'bearing' with https://rimmerbros.com/Item--i-CRC360 Obviously not as good as a ball or roller bearing but as the original had lasted 30 years....

[cantus]

thank you all for the fast replies.
I ordered the original rubber one at TVR parts.
kind regards
Wim

[Grady]

Englishman said:

I just replaced the 'bearing' with https://rimmerbros.com/Item--i-CRC360 Obviously not as good as a ball or roller bearing but as the original had lasted 30 years....

I assume that the one on my car was the original one and after a few years it died. I bought an OEM replacement and looking it over, I thought it looked tired and pitted, like the plastic had started to decayed in the bag (after all, it had probably been sitting on the shelf for ~30 years). It only lasted a couple of years (3-5?) before it crumbled away. Hence my vote for the upgrade.

Edited by Grady on Monday 10th February 21:16

[Pumpkin123]

For info, I looked into this some time ago and I believe there were 2 different size bushes with an ID of either 13 or 19mm. Not sure why this is, I believe there were different steering columns used but not sure. They were available from Racetech under 025H108A or 025H008A. Personally the bearing has to be a better idea, but is really tight for space on mine.