1967 rag joint

[Del S.]

Could someone please post a picture of the rag joint showing the copper strap or explain to me where the strap fastens . thanks Del

[John H.]

Re: 1967 rag joint

Could someone please post a picture of the rag joint showing the copper strap or explain to me where the strap fastens . thanks Del

Del -

Photos below show the assembled rag joint (you can see part of the copper ground strap in the center) and the strap itself. Later Service replacements used steel mesh layered inside the carcass piece instead of the separate copper strap. The rag joint came to the plant as part of the steering gear from Saginaw.

[Rich P.]

Re: 1967 rag joint

Del,

sorry no picture right now but the copper ground strap is easy. It should already be riveted to the lower side of the rag joint. It then makes a 90 degree bend in the center of the rag joint and twisting at the same time so it will line up with one of the 2 special bolts that hold the rag joint together. All it does is carry the ground through the colum to the frame. If you ever have honked your horn and got a shock while doing so it most likely is a broken rag joint ground.

Hope this helpes a little.
Rich

[Rich P.]

Re: 1967 rag joint

I also wanted to add that ALL original 67 rag joints used a flat piece of copper for this not a wire. They are very distinct looking.

Rich

[Jim S.]

Re: 1967 rag joint

Early flexible couplings utilized a ground wire that encircled the "donut hole" in the rubber coupling disc. It was replaced by the less expensive all metal grounding strap in 1968. One end of the wire or strap was always placed under a pin that was hot riveted in place. So in order to remove the ground wire/strap you would need to grind off the rivet head and drive the rivet out from the flange. Obviously, to place the wire/strap in a new assembly in a production-like manner, you would need to come up with a new rivet and some method of staking it in place. Not a very easy thing to duplicate.


I found this generic picture of a flexible coupling with a horn ground wire. It would have been pre-1968.




This one has a all metal grounding strap. I have this one listed as 1968L to 1972. It is interesting to note that this strap passes right through the middle of the donut hole. Unlike the picture in the earlier posting that encircles the donut hole. So there was more than one type of grounding strap. Possibly the metal blank for the one in this picture used less of material and was a cost savings.




This is a 1965-66 Corvette flexible coupling. You say, "where is the grounding wire or strap?" Well, Saginaw was pretty good a updating their service part assemblies so that the manufacturing plant did not have to keep an inventory of all kinds of superceded parts. So this flexible coupling has been updated to include the rubber disc with the grounding screen molded into the face of the disc. The bad news is that any Corvette service coupling assembly that was manufactured after 1972 would probably have had the new screen ground disc and not a grounding strap/wire like the original.


I think that it is nearly impossible to detect the wire/strap with the flex coupling installed in the car. With a later service part, if you were to carefully grind those pesky little wire ends from the edge of the coupling disc, (so someone judging the part could not easily feel the wire ends poking out from a later screen ground disc) who would know?

Jim

[Rich P.]

Re: 1967 rag joint

Hey Jim great pics!!

The best way to repair a broken strap style ground (which is the 67 style) is to take the broken end from your coupler or a strap from another 60's era GM coupler And solder it. I have made this repair several dozen times.

Rich

[Del S.]

Re: 1967 rag joint

Thanks guys ....this was very helpful.

Can anyone tell me why if I search " rag joint " , I only get " Joint " threads ?

[Joel F.]

Re: 1967 rag joint

Thanks guys ....this was very helpful.

Can anyone tell me why if I search " rag joint " , I only get " Joint " threads ?

Del,

I think the DB only allows searches of 4+ characters, so a search for 327 would not find anything. Pretty silly functionality in my opinion but regardless the search function is much improved over the old DB.

Joel