911 & 914/6 Upper Steering Bearing, I found a replacement - any interest? Options

[McMark]

I have a 3.2 conversion project that's getting a 911 steering column for the key-on-the-left. Well this column we got didn't have the upper steering bearing and new replacements are $260. I was able to find something that will work for much less. Wondering if there is any interest in putting together some kits to sell.

These are not for 914/4 key on the right columns. It's a drop in replacement and should only take a few minutes to install. If there's interest I'll sell the first two at a steep discount as long as they get installed soon so I can confirm there are no installation issues or small variances from car to car.

[sbsix]

Well my thoughts of finding a small bearing puller to yank out the existing steering bearing did not bear fruit....nothing around that will do the job. The Porsche service & repair manual lists a specific bearing puller with two pieces, Kukko 22-1 and Kukko-4 for this job, but that's another story.

In any case, I took the tried and true method of a light hammer and increasing widths of screwdrivers to get the bearing lip far enough away from the steering column to gently tap it from the back and the bearing popped right out. Less elegant, but it works. All told it took me about 20 minutes of working the bearing out after I removed the plastic housing and horn ring. I did not need to use a vise grip. I did end up with a couple of very mild scratches on the end of the steering column from all of this, but nothing really big. Plus my close vision sucks, so that doesn't help at all.

I tried my collegue's method of wrapping the steel shim with the hose clamp, but I could not get the shim to sit within the column this way, so I removed the clamp and set the shim in without it, just about half way. I positioned the new bearing in place and gently tapped it with a 30mm socket. I did place a very small amount of bearing grease around the outside of the new bearing to facilitate installation.

The bearing went in very easily, and by using the 30mm socket, which only covered the bearing and not the shim, the bearing was seated just before the shim. I just had to tap the shim home and both were seated level with the end of the steering column.

The steering wheel went on next to test the bearing and it worked as Mark intended. No slop whatsoever! The wheel functioned as intended and there was absolutely no play in it.