Steering half-shaft joint rubbing on head shield

[NCGermerican]

I replaced the short block on my 87 turbo about a month ago, just in time for 944Fest. I have been experiencing a few issues with steering ever since the swap.

The first was that my Fabspeed downpipe was rubbing on the frame (by the castor block) and causing a rubbing/grinding noise when turning to the right or going in reverse. Grinding off a bit of the metal by the frame freed up some space and the noise is gone.

However, I was still getting a vibration in the steering wheel whenever I turned the wheel. Upon inspection, I saw that the half-shaft (u-joint to steering rack) was rubbing on it's heat shield. I removed the head shield and that definitely solved the problem.

The issue is, I want to keep the head shield in place. I tried bending/contorting the head shield to free up more room, but that distorted it to the point it won't bolt back up. I have a used one on order and should be here this week.

So - what could have caused the steering shaft to start rubbing on the heat shield? From my understanding, the u-joint can only connect to the steering rack one way, and you can't get the bolt through unless it's perfectly positioned on the channel of the splines of the rack. The steering rack has brand new rubber bushings, but that shouldn't move the rack enough up or down to cause an issue, correct?

I've read that some folks with upgraded turbos don't even use that head shield, but I would rather keep it on. Any thoughts?

[Tom]

I'll take a look at mine later. It does sound like maybe something went back in out of place or something. Do you have any pictures that might help shed light?

[NCGermerican]

It’s really hard to get a good camera angle with it in the car, but here is the heat shield. I circled the points where it is rubbing. I'll try to get a picture of where the u-joint is attached to the rack after work this evening.

IMG_6227.jpeg (472.05 KiB) Viewed 348 times

[Cruise98]

Are the joints worn out and have a lot of play in them?

[NCGermerican]

Hey Folks - I hate open ended threads, so wanted to pick this back up with an update. I actually made a video about it on my Youtube Channel (shameless plug). Be nice - I'm new to making/editing videos, have a full time job and family and I'm no Matt Ross.
Seriously - his videos are great!

Actually, posting the video helped find the source of the issue. My initial thought was that the channel on the steering rack's splined output shaft was the same exact size as the through bolt in the u-joint. It appears I was wrong! Someone placed a few comments on the video and said they had the same heat shield rubbing issue and there IS some play in the channel on the splined shaft.

While I was able to stop the rubbing by grinding away some of the metal on the heat shield, that didn't solve the root cause of the problem. My next step is to do what the commenter suggested - loosen the nut on the u-joint and try to slide it down just a bit more WITH the bolt still inserted. He said it shouldn't take more than a few minutes.......I need to figure out how to get some leverage to push down on that u-joint - without dismantling half the driver's side of the engine bay.

And Richard Herman - if you're on Carpokes and are reading this - Thank you!!!

[AudiSport]

Did you put in new engine mounts (I would hope so)? If things are sitting too low from old collapsed mounts , it could cause that also?

[NCGermerican]

Did you put in new engine mounts (I would hope so)? If things are sitting too low from old collapsed mounts , it could cause that also?

Sort of. One of the first things I did when I bought the car 3 years ago was replace the motor mounts with genuine Porsche mounts. Given I've put less than 8K miles on the car since I've owned it, I just reused those when I swapped the motor in August.

And yes - I can see that if your mounts are collapsed, it would drop the head shield down to the point it would be in contact with the steering shaft u-joint.