So way back in September I found out the original brake light switch on the car was bad. So I replaced it with a new one. Then this last weekend my wife and I were filling tires and checking lights and found the brake lights were not working again. I quickly tracked the problem back to the switch. Evidently the new switch suffered some infant mortality. Dammit.
I bought 4 new tires and had them installed on the powder-coated wheels. I went with street radials that are similar in size to the original 7.35×15 bias-ply tires. P225-75R15. They are whitewalls but I put those on the inside. Whitewalls are wrong on this car I think.
I finally got the new bulb sockets in so I put the instrument cluster back together with new bulbs and the new voltage regulator.
Tonight I put the steering back together but first…
So I ended up taking the drag link back out of the car. The end plugs that came with the rebuild kit are very, very different from the ones that were in there before. Not only are the plugs longer but the slots in the end are a lot shallower.
The guide pins are different too.
Time to read the manual. And the manual says that I am doing it all wrong. According to the manual the steering box end should have the spring on the outside (plug) end and the bellcrank end should have the spring on the inside end. So I tried to put it together that way.
So there is no way to get the ball in that socket. My first thought was to compress the spring. So I rigged up this tool to do it.
But the spring is too long. So I put one of the original springs back in which are a lot shorter.
But with the spring fully compressed the ball still will not go in there. I am not sure what the heck to do. So I am posting a question on the Jeepster forum to see what the interweb knows.
I collected my painted steering parts and started putting things together.
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