The heavens opened on Central Missouri this week making it a soggy one. I emptied 1.6" from a Wednesday rain, 5.5" from Saturday rains, and .6" today. I forgot to take a picture of my rain gauge so this from Paul Jeffery, a college fraternity brother and buddy of mine.

No mowing grass or any other tractor work much this week. So I pulled the steering wheel (much easier than I expected), removed the bolts connecting the steering shaft to the steering gear, and pulled the steering shaft up to examine.  As you can see the OEM rubber bushing is toast and, there are some extra bushings between it and the retaining clip??? 

Look what I found.  The added bushings were 3-rubber washers, maybe garden hose washers, and a short piece of threaded pipe. Guess someone didn't realize the retainer clip could be removed and placed in a higher position? A close-up of the homemade bushings.

And another of the worn out OEM Simplicity bushing. 

Luckily I have a supply of NOS OEM rubber steering bushings I got a few years ago from Ed England and I have a couple of usable used ones too. Turned out to be a quick fix; at least I think its fixed anyho). I reset the retainer clip, drove a good used OEM rubber bushing in place and I took the opportunity to adjust the steering gear set screw. When back together sitting still on cement there seemed to be no steering shaft wobble or steering gear slip. Due to the weather I was damp and cold by the time I finished this project so I packed the tools back into the shop, cleaned up and called it a day. The test will come in action next week.