steering shaft and u joints and rag joints and double D and......

[badherb]

OK! I had one million questions regarding the whole list of parts available for a steering system; from steering wheel to power steering box or manual box; which I don't care about since I have power steering but much should apply to the two systems equally.
Having said that I’m not an expert but I spent about 4 hours researching the web to find out everything I could because I WAS ignorant of everything in the system. Here are some terms being thrown around:
Double D: a shaft the looks like two Ds stuck together back to back.
spine size: 3/4 30 spline, 3/4 36 spline, 13/16 36 spline, 1 inch 40 spline. Everything seems like Greek language until we break it down.
Rag joint: dampens steering vibrations
Steering dampener: rag joint on steroids. And twice the $.
U joint: universal joint to help with steering intermediate shaft angles.
Support bearing: required if using two or more u joints.
35 degrees: max angle of a u joint. need two or more if over.
Don’t weld!
Here is the system I have and the info you may need to rebuild or fab up your own system when you don’t know everything that is there.
I purchased a universal Ididtit column. It has a 3/4 36 spline output shaft. Some have double D some have 1 inch 40 spline, many variations. just for reference my stock truck had a double d 3/4. I have some variation of a Saginaw power steering box I believe it’s a series 800 but that is really just totally unimportant as I found out. All you need to know is input shaft size and spline count as there are a bunch of them. I took longer than I thought I should on the details of mine but my calipers did not read the sizes I have listed. I had to compare to a mistaken purchased rag joint to the stock rag joint. Get this 13/16 is .813 ish. My shaft (sounds dirty sorry) read max .803 and min of .70 measured on the recess of the splines (a milled groove in the shaft with no splines). I found the rag joint that didn’t fit was a 3/4. So it has to be a 13/16 and according to Ididits web site the 13/16 has only one spline count of 36, mine had 18 with flat spots for indexing. Am I making sense. meow.
Ok so rehash this.... 3/4 36 spline output from column. 13/16 36 spline input to box. Now the tough part is finding all this shhhtuff on line. It took about 45 minutes and here is what I came up with from Summit: ididit 3000055240 - ididit Steering Rag Joints, ididit 3000033452 - ididit U-Joints, Flaming River FR9950 - Flaming River Steering Shafts. At Summit I could not find the Ididit shaft.
So I have this for a run down: 3/4 36 spline to 1-inch double D u joint, 1-inch double D 13/16 36 spline rag joint and a 1-inch double D intermediate shaft. It’s not collapsible but could be if they had one. I also wanted to use my 1960 steering wheel but that won’t fit any ididit steering columns, according to Ididit, so I have to find one I like and adapt or find 68 or newer and that will fit with the proper horn kit.
I did this in a day and worried about it for months but did not know where to start. I hope I helped someone out there. Measure each end count splines and break it down to each component it will be much easier.

[badherb]

Ididit has many videos on you tube. Watch a few and avoid mistakes or errors in your system.

[Lugnutz65]

I'll jump in and add what I am doing.
I hate throwing perfectly good stuff away, especially if it keeps the truck looking original.
Everything below is still in the mock up stage and progress is very slow, but so far no major snags.

I installed a 1974 PS box to my 1965 frame using CaptainFabs special bracket.
Then I cut about 18" off the 1965 original steering rod and installed the 1974 lower steering rod onto the 1974 PS box. The 1974 lower steering rod is designed to telescope on impact, making things safer.

Next, I slid the original steering system about 3 inches closer to the dash. I find things much more comfortable with the steering wheel closer to the dash. This does make the lower edge or the factory steering wheel a bit closer to the floor and thus closer to the knees, but it will still work well for me.

I plan to shorten the inner and outer steering column tubes by about 3 inches. Then I'll carefully shorten the original steering rod so it properly joins to the 1974 lower steering rod. The end will get machined to the DD shape so it can properly connect to the U-joint I bought from eBay.

The end result will be a fairly original looking dash and steering column (except that I have converted to a floor shifter).

I'm not very concerned about how original the cab looks. The steering column will be safer due to the telescoping lower steering rod and I will have saved the cost of a new IDIDIT or Flaming River column which are quite spendy.

You can see more of the steps on my BLOG.

[padresag]

the nbr of splines may designate what series of vehicle it belongs to. 30 splines is 1/2t, 26 spline is 3/4t and 40 1t. I needed a new str. box for mine years back and found that my old 36 spline box had come from a 76 3/4t 4 x 4 suburban. they had sent me a 30 spline first.
all of the str boxes should be interchangeable as long as you have the correct rag joint to go with it. that is my conclusion which may be wrong but stands to reason
ron