Not today, but yesterday. My 1998 Subaru Impreza daily driver started having "hard spots" in the steering wheel rotation early in the week. My LJ has been up on my lift for weeks for the rear frame raise portion of my build, and I completed everything but paint last weekend (see
my build thread, if that interests you). I got home early enough a few times this week to get it painted, lower the body back onto the rear of the frame, and put the wheels back on over the course of a few evenings.
Yesterday morning, I put the Impreza up on the lift to diagnose the steering hard spots. The hard spots corresponded to even rotations of the steering column, indicating to me that it was either a stiff column u-joint or a something worn in the area of the pinion gear inside the rack-and-pinion assembly. To determine the culprit, I removed the four rack mounting bolts and dropped the rack about an inch, which allowed me to remove the steering shaft (really just a very short shaft with a u-joint on each end):
Once I got the shaft off, the problem became obvious. One of the four joints was extremely tight. Here's where it got interesting. Driving a 26-year-old vehicle for a daily driver can be a challenge because when you get a few hundred miles short of 400,000 miles, parts start wearing out that were never expected to wear out - like a steering u-joint. There are no new steering shafts to be found anywhere! [Side Note: I had a similar problem a couple years back when I rebuilt the engine, but that one didn't make sense - no new pistons available from
any source. Really? Pistons wear out.] But, I digress. Back to this story...
I found exactly one used shaft on eBay, supposedly from a 103,000 mile vehicle. It's now on the way. However, I didn't want to leave the Impreza on the lift while waiting for this to arrive (and I also prefer driving it to the office every day over my Expedition), so I decided to put it back together with the old shaft for now.
Before doing so, I decided to see if I could encourage some range-of-motion back from the old shaft. I have used
Tri-flow Spray Lube for decades. It's very light viscosity, so it flows through capillary action into tight spaces well, and it has Teflon in it. I grabbed that can and sprayed into the gap below the rubber seals and worked the joint. After a few tries, it freed right up - almost as good as new! So back in it went.
Of course, without being able to get proper grease in there, it's eventually going to tighten up again, but it's a steering column, not a driveshaft, thank goodness. I'll likely shoot some Tri-flow Lube in with every oil change. I'm going to just drive it until it tightens up again. I'll then just try re-lubing it, and if that doesn't work, I'll put the eBay shaft in.
