The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot '60-'66 Trucks Steering Failure - 1962 C10 Rag Joint

I had a scary one happen yesterday. Drove the old '62 to work. when I got ready to leave, I put it in reverse and cranked the wheel to back out of the parking space and heard and felt a major "BANG!", then the steering wheel spun with ease and felt completely disconnected. I got out and looked, sure enough, the Rag Joint had shredded and fallen out. I'm sure glad this happened backing out of a parking space instead of on the freeway at 70+ mph like I was doing the day before.

Here are a couple of pictures of the aftermath.

Steering Box

Rag Joint

I guess this is to be expected after 55 years of uninterrupted service. :-)

No replacement parts locally, but Brothers Trucks had the rebuild kit for $14.99. New part is on order.

Glad you are OK and nobody hurt. A good reminder to all of us that a routine inspection is time well spent. Steering and brake component inspection go at the top of the list.

That happened to me a couple of times when I was driving FURD pickups with rusted-out front cab mounts. The weight of the cab puts a strain on the flex joint. Better check the steering shaft for alignment, and look at cab mounts in particular!
Jerry

Cab mounts are definitely in need of replacement, at least the bushings. I already knew that. The metal is in good shape though. I did the core support mount bushings already, but not the cab. I did not know that it was that critical. I figured that I had time to keep it low on the list. Now I know better.

I'll add that to my list of many things. :-)

Thanks for that connection Jerry. I had not made that relationship and my cab is one of my worries.

Consider yourself very fortunate that the failure happened in a parking lot.

I do consider myself very lucky. That's one of the reasons I started this thread. I wanted to bring this subject to the attention of others.

Please check the rag joints on your trucks folks. I was lucky, I don't want anyone else to have to rely on luck!

I did a very temporary fix involving jacking up the cab and putting wood spacers between the cab and the frame. On the Fords a 2X4 was just about the right thickness to bring the rag joint back into alignment.
Jerry

there is usually a lot more strain on it when the truck is not moving or when in a parking space. likeliedt the greatest time of failure.
ron

did you use the special ford haywire to hold them in place?
ron

Nope- - -just a bunch of drywall screws through the cab floor!
Jerry

Well, the new part came in yesterday, but it was raining to hard to work on the truck.

This afternoon, I had both the time and clear weather to work on it. Truck is now officially repaired and back on the road!!

Steering Coupler Repair.