steering shaft clip purpose, safety hazard?

[DAmatt]

Hello everyone,

As I'm nearing the end of my restoration, all sort of problems spring out of nowhere...

What role does the clip in the middle have (19-15-4 in the exploded picture)? does it stop the shaft from sliding? Do I risk life and limb by not having it? It's missing. If it is a problem, is there anywhere I can find it?

Thanks!

[Nacho-RT74]

That’s as far I recall a ground reinforcement. Was replaced on mid 68 or 69 for the wire and staples setup

[birdsandbees]

Now that you've added the picture... that isn't a clip, that is the two plastic/nylon injection spots that shear and allow the column shaft to collapse into it's hollow section when you hit the steering wheel.

[b5blue]

Made to shear upon impact allowing the shaft to be collapsible if needed. If your shaft is still fixed, not sliding, it's okay. 

[Nacho-RT74]

The ground clip pointed out was replaced in mid 67, not 68 or 69 as I thought.

Noted on first paragraph and on fig 2 on second page of the bulletin

[John_Kunkel]

At one time the factory offered a kit to repair the sheared plastic inserts, just an adhesive to keep the lower shaft from working its way out of the pot-joint. From my experience, even the sheared inserts have enough sliding resistance to prevent that.

[gtx6970]

Ive had dozens of columns apart and never seen any kind of clip there .

[Hemidog]

I didn't see a clip either when I did my resto

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php?topic=5404.0
http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,43930.0/all.html

[Nacho-RT74]

1967 was the last year for the clip, per we can read on bulletin

"CARS BUILT AFTER MARCH 15 1967 WILL HAVE THIS CHANGE INCORPORATED IN THEM" (Staples and wire replacing the clip )

[DAmatt]

This forum is a gold mine!

Thanks guys, this helps me a lot! I think I'll mix some poxipol (sort of plastic welding in 2 tubes that combine exothermically and set into a kind of plastic that hold things together), and put it in the two holes. Hope it will prevent the shaft from telescoping out of the steering box, yet be brittle enough so that it breaks if God forbid the column has to collapse.

Never would I have found the answer just googling around...

[Nacho-RT74]

There is an OLD THREAD ( dunno if here or on our old board ) where a buddy ( nickname RD ) made an experiment using several compounds ( plastics and epoxies ) and using a dinamometer to check resistance up to break it. The hardest part was to get all the holes and gaps correctly filled.

I think the best result was obtained using the silicone heating gun, BUT would require get heated the shafts too, because silicone gets cold as soon leaves the gun and gets in touch with the shafts.