wanted: 84 terc "sliding yoke" /steering shaft

[just phil]

So my 84 sr5 w/ power steering has play in the joint going to the rack. I have looked at about a dozen t4wd locally noneof them are the same as mine. My ruby has an 8 inch shaft welded to the joint meeting another joint at the firewall.
If anyone has one they woukd be willing to ship to canada let me know please. I will take pics tommorrow.
In case it matters it is built august 1983.

[Petros]

what you have is used on the '83 and '84 model years only, and only with the power steering (the manual steering is similar but the shaft is longer and it will not fit). These are no longer available, even though the u-joint itself is still made, it was intended that you buy the whole assmbly and not just the u-joint. Many of the used ones in the wrecking yards are just as bad, all are the same age.

There is one thing you might consider if you can not find one, almost all of the toyotas from '83 to 87, and possibly later, used a similar small universal joint, but with different spline shaft mounting yoke. I would not buy a new one, but if you find a good used one you can press out the good u-joint and press it into your steering shaft yoke. I have done this using a u-joint I took from a wrecked MR2. I just put it in vice and used an alumimum dowel as a punch to drive it out. I tapped it out by working it it back and fourth until the bearing caps come out. than you can wiggle the joint out of the yoke. Careful not to drop any of the needled bearings, I than put fresh moly grease in it. You have to use fine sand paper on the inside bore of your yoke to clean it up to install the new one. I than installed the u-joint from the MR2 linkage on to my Tercel steering yoke linkage by pounding it on using the aluminum dowel as a driver. Once the bearing caps are driven on you have to use a pointed punch to stake the bearing caps into the yoke so they do not work their way out. you put some dents around the perimeter of the yoke next to bearing cap to lock the bearing cap into the yoke.

I did this as an experiment and it seems to have worked using simple hand tools (vise, hammer, half round file and sand paper, moly grease). No press or machine shop is required. I took some pictures with the intent of posting them but I just have not had time to edit them and create instructions.