Rag Joint Mystery

[bry312dav]

Long time listener, first time caller. Great forum!
I bought a '69 F250, 360 (manual steering) a couple weeks ago. It has a few warts and I've set about fixing them with all the helpful info I've found here.
During the dreaded exhaust manifold bolt removal task I happened to be staring at the rag joint/steering coupling. I noticed these two little geared plastic pieces in the joint that looked like they were at one time joined together, and possibly purple in color. Can anybody tell me what these are, what they might have been/done, and if they were ever important? I've looked high and low but haven't found anything on these little toothed plastic pieces in a rag joint. I'll replace the rag joint as a future task, but I'm really curious what these things are/did...

Rag - 1.jpg

Rag - 2.jpeg

[Calfdemon]

First time I have seen anything like that...

[hillcountryflt]

Put it this way, I don't recall seeing them on any drawings of the steering gear and associated components. They look out of place.

[bry312dav]

Agreed. So far I haven't seen anything like this in any steering diagrams, or when I look at replacement parts. My only hypothesis is that this thing was some aftermarket gizmo available back in the 70's that would supposedly correct some nebulous steering woe, but then went off the market.

[flyboy2610]

You've got a bit more than a rag joint issue.
That flange is swaged to the bottom of your steering shaft. It should not be bent at an angle like that. It appears that what you have is a previous owners hack job to try to get the truck to be able to steer. There should be two large metal pins where those plastic pieces are.

[Mancar1]

Bingo

[Calfdemon]

There should be two large metal pins where those plastic pieces are.

It looks like the metal pins are there if you look at the first picture. The PO looks to have put those white pieces AROUND the metal pins... Possibly because of the bend, he had too much play in the steering and by making the pins "larger" with those white pieces around them, it took out the play? But yeah, that bend is a major problem. That should be sitting down lower around the metal pin like the other side.

[guhfluh]

I don't see any unusual bend in the flange? The flanges at the bottom of the steering column shafts are not flat, but more waved shaped, are they not? There may be an alignment issue between the column and box that I can't see, from bad mounts, but I can't see anything else.

[bry312dav]

I have a little more on this.
I pulled those little plastic pieces off the rag joint. They were barely on there and came off just using my fingers. The plastic on the frayed ends is thinner than a plastic milk jug.

Gear02.jpg

And here is a shot of my rag joint without the plastic pieces. It doesn't looked swaged to me, but I'm a neophyte. Does it still look like it has issues?

RJ01-2.jpg

I just happened to be on the Dennis Carpenter main site page and searched for rag joint. This came up:

78 Steering Coupling-2.jpg

Obviously not for my truck, but looks enough like the same things so I called them to see if they could tell me what they were. He went and got one of these parts off the shelf and said,
"Those blue things are nothing more than the heavy duty metal rivets that have been painted blue, and they are what hold all the pieces together."
That's not what they were on mine and that's not what I see in their web site's part picture.
Oh well. He did end up giving me five other companies to call to see if they might know....

[Calfdemon]

With the new picture of your rag joint, it looks perfectly fine. What looked off to me was the 2nd picture you posted in your original post. It looks completely bent out of whack on the side that is photographed and the angle of your steering shaft looks off. It obviously is just an illusion probably from the angle that the photo was taken. But when you back off like with new photo that you just added, everything looks fine.

[bry312dav]

With the new picture of your rag joint, it looks perfectly fine. What looked off to me was the 2nd picture you posted in your original post. It looks completely bent out of whack on the side that is photographed and the angle of your steering shaft looks off. It obviously is just an illusion probably from the angle that the photo was taken. But when you back off like with new photo that you just added, everything looks fine.

Phew! The words "looks fine" are some sweet, sweet music!

[guhfluh]

The rag joint and coupling at the bottom of the shift look fine, but the connection of the shift to the coupler look like there may be some play. That coupling is swedged on, as was mentioned and it's not good if it is moving on the shaft. Check to see how much movement you get there and if needed it can be tack welded in place, but it's unlikely it'll fall off.