Nige wrote:You can usually just drift the new bearing down the shaft pushing the old further down and out of the way. Be worth seeing if you can drift the old one further down before you put the new bearing on though just in case it's been done a few times already and there is no space left on the shaft/column.
Nooooh!
This is an early style column and doesn't have a top bush.
The bearing that you can see is a two piece jobbie that costs around the £200 mark from Porsche and it will not knock down into the column and if you try you will wreck the entire bearing.
This what the assembled top bearing looks like and it is in two pieces held together with a Snap Ring and has around 40 loose 3mm bearings inside.
They sometimes come apart and the ball bearings fall out and then they don't centre. This would be obvious as you could pull the centre out if this had happened.
The bearing is easy to rebuild but you will need a puller to get it out of the column.
The wheel is centred by the 'boss' on the steering wheel and there is always some clearance but this should be minimal.
It looks from the photograph that the 'stuetzring' may be missing. This ring holds the spring slightly compressed and allows the nose of the boss to locate correctly into the bearing and eliminate swash.
If you measure the ID of the bearing and the OD of the boss they should match to within around 0.25mm.
It may also be worth looking at the state of the lower bearing.
if you remove the steering shaft you should be able to get at this bearing from inside the luggage compartment as it is help with a circlip and can be extracted from the bottom of the column.
The bearing has a single shield on the outside but the inner face is open and they are commonly full of crud.
If you do replace the bearing I would suggest using one with 2 x shields to keep the inner track clean.
Good Luck
