Steering wheel spindles

So I was on the lathe again. The idea is to make a bushing that I can weld to my frame that will hold the steering wheel shaft in two places along the shaft, allowing it to rotate but holding it steady otherwise.

The shaft will have two 'washers' welded on either side of each bushing to keep the shaft from sliding through the bushings.

I started with 1.25" dia by 2" long solid bar. Faced and drilled out progressively to 1/2" as with the front axle spindles - mainly because 1/2" is the largest bit I happen to have.

Then I bored the hole larger, to around 0.65" all the way through. Finally I bored 1/2" deep holes into each end that are wide enough to house the 5/8" bushings.


Here you can see the progression from stock to finished product.
I will be cutting the bronze bushing (on the right) in half, putting half at the top and half at the bottom. Also you can see the zerk (grease nipple) and the hole which I drilled and tapped which will deliver grease to the volume around the shaft.

The zerk is threaded in, and the bushing halves were driven into the spindle.

The bushings are a little loose, as I am still finding it difficult to get precision results with the boring bar - it seems to flex in varying amounts which depends on how much material I try to take off, making all of my cuts inconsistent. e.g. 60 thou movements take off about 60 thou, but 40 thou movements only take off about 25 thou. Need to talk to a machinist about this issue.

Lastly here's the bushing with the steering column through it. Spins like a dream. As you can see I turned down the steering column to nicely fit the bushings - a most unpleasant task of which I have no pictures.