Well, though the tool CAD exercise was good, I found a place with the original SST. It should be here in the next week so I can finally finish this steering gearbox.........geez this thing is dragging along. I need to get along to more entertaining topics.........like rear suspension and engine bits.
Back to the steering coupling, it's pretty dry rotted and could use to be replaced. After much searching online, a toyota dealer, and 2 auto stores, I can't find a replacement one for the life of me. So, what do you do when you can't find something? well, you make it, of course. I broke it apart this afternoon and ordered a 6"x6" sheet of half inch polyurethane from McMaster Carr. It took some research to find out "about" what measurement of polyurethane hardness to order. This site taught me about the durometer hardness scales (
http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/200 ... ure14.html) - which is what MMC sells their rubber/poly sheets in. I got 80A. PN 8716K58 if anyone cares.
I'll somehow cut a circle out of this and drill the holes in it. Below are pics of the breakdown of the steering coupling. I'll take pics of the finished product and post a comparison.
Mostly, to break the coupling apart, you need two different methods. The first being the the two threaded studs holding the female "clamp" piece where the gearbox sector gear shaft is inserted. To get these two studs off, just thread one of the M8 nuts onto the threads so it's slightly higher than the stud (not flush and not too deep) plop it in the vice so the nut faces up, but don't clamp down on the vice. get a punch and smack the nut with your favorite BFH. It should come off after a few hits. The other two pieces can be taken off by prying the washers off the backside (the reverse side of the female "clamp"). use a huge screwdriver and some pliers to pull them off. then the metal portions should slide out easily. oh, the copper ground wire for the horn.....just be sure not to damage it during removal. It's kind of pressed onto one of the metal washers on the rear. carefully take it off with a small screwdriver.
I'll clean all this up and paint it before install. It should end up looking good. I'll powder coat the gearbox and maybe the female clamp too. My only concern with reassembly of the coupling is pressing the metal washers back into the metal dowels. we'll see......
Following coupler removal
One washer removed (from the other side)
Stud mostly removed by BFH. you can see the scarring where I tried to pull the damn things out before I learned they were pressed in.
Stud completely removed. Note the splines on the stud. That's what holds it into the female clamp piece.
Both studs, female clamp, and grounding piece removed only rubber left at this point
Here's a few pics of some "new" ones i found online........but they were all on some crazy foreign sites (e.g. alibaba and I would have had to order minimum 200 of them.................ya.)
![Image](http://i.imgur.com/QtKM6W1.jpg)