Stiff steering

[stanrob]

Wow! I am blessed! You guys got right on the case and what an exchange!
My 85 has PS and the tilt feature, so I start from there.
I had already checked the PS fluid.
Simply seeing that you all appear to agree it's most likely the U-joint itself, I am relieved.
As I mentioned, the problem comes and goes. Today it decided to ease up.
We're in the middle of a serious winter (12" snow yesterday), and I have no garage, so I will dodge this for a while by spraying stuff on it.
Most of you guys are not in snow country, but you must know: this is one great snow car.

[Petros]

keep soaking the u-joint is LPS or PB blaster, or WD-40 regularly (like every few days, perhaps when you get gas and check your oil level) and it should hold up for a while this way. Eventually the needle bearings get chewed up and crumble away, it will still work but will have a lot of slop in the steering. The potential to totally fail is there too if it gets really bad, but that will not happen anytime soon. You will feel it get really sloppy long before than, but it means you should be looking to replace it sometime soon, like this spring or summer.

the part you want looks like this below, and is used on a number of different toyota cars and trucks, so it should be available even if toyota does not sell it any longer:

[Tercel__jon]

I was looking at one of my parts cars, a cressida, and noticed it came apart just like the tercel's. Maybe the supra/cressida ujoint will fit. Ill report back later this week when I give it a shot.

[stanrob]

Good news (for me at least): a few drops of Singer Sewing Machine Oil clear the problem for at least 45 days. That comes from a tiny little dropper-can. Much easier to apply than using a spray can, and a lot less expensive to boot! I did it from above on a subfreezing winter day with high winds.