Steering revisited...

My plan for the day was going to be to install the steering rack and the radiator.  Like the 'fog of war' My plans came apart the moment I started on installing the blow by pipe. This is a pipe that takes the fumes from the top of the engine and pipes them into the intake's for the carbs so that the fumes get 'digested' by the engine as it's running.  to replace this piece I had to remove the hoses, the mud shield behind the right front wheel (thats ok because the mud shields have to come off to get at the bushings for the front suspension which I want to get going on this week).  So after I got that stuff out of the way I was able to work the pipe back under the carbs and between the hoses etc.   A couple of the old hoses had to be removed to accomplish this and so they were replaced at this time too,  Sounds simple but all the hose connections need to be cleaned using 'emory' cloth so there goes more time.

After the blow by pipe and hoses were taken care of I was ready to install the steering rack but I decided this would be the time to check the universal joints (u-joints) or the steering column.  Well, Michelle, this is what was making the steering bind-the bottom u-joint was completely frozen in one plain.  Since they only time this can be removed is when the radiator is out it's a good thing I checked.  Finally got the column out (have to remove the u-joint inside the cabin so that the long column can be pulled out from the front).  I had thought that maybe I could just clean and grease the u-joints and re-install them but they were to far gone-rusted to the point that they were not rebuildable.   Hope to be able to find them locally at a place called 6 flags, they've helped me in the past on this sort of thing so might be able to get them taken care of tomorrow, I hope.

Sans mud shield

Sans Radiator and steering rack, tested the fan in the picture today and good news-it works just have to figure out why they left it out of the circuit

In the far upper right you can see the blow by pipe coming out in back of the front of the carb

The frozen u-joint, The car will steer like new when we're done.

That's it for today,
Cheers

PS: Had a nice time with friends at the car show and was tickled when the 68 took 'Best in Show'