Searched the forum for answers, but came up with nothing so figured I'd ask and see if anyone has been down this road before. I replaced the rag joint and rack assy on the '74 and it works well except for 1 annoying thing. The pinch bolt on the rack coupler tightens down but leaves just a hint of play. Rather than try to find a new coupler, I'm looking to upgrade it. Since the pinto/MII manual racks are used in quite a few different applications, there are a ton to 9/16-26 couplers available. It's the OTHER end I'm curious about. It LOOKS like a 1" DD shaft that makes up the bottom end of the intermediate shaft, but I haven't torn it down yet to check. Anyone know what the bottom end of the shaft is?

Play in the actual cross joint or the pinchpoint? I have taken like hacksaw or dremel with a cutting wheel to open slot up for more pinch. Put joint in vise and pinch gap shut with no bolt in it to close the gap then dremel or hacksaw out the slot again to make more pinch grip ability. The wider slot then pinches in slightly more to positively lock solid as a rock.