I'm in the middle of an engine swap and am reconfiguring the steering shafts in the engine compartment to make room for the driver's side exhaust manifold. I obtained a used intermediate shaft (that odd, rectangular looking piece between the u-joints) and cut the splined ends off of it. Also cut up a used upper u-joint --- the one that sits on the end of the steering shaft right at the firewall. I'm using just the splined piece of that essentially as a coupling to extend the steering shaft further and straight into the engine compartment before it goes into the first u-joint and makes a right turn towards the pinion on the rack. Will look something like this when I'm done --- http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/ad214/MichaelYount/LS3%20Engine%20swap/clearance_zpstzvqdvhq.jpg

My question is this -- has anyone tried to use the upper u-joint (which is a MUCH shorter u-joint) on the pinion? I'd like to do this as the shorter u-joint will give me some much needed clearance around the exhaust manifold I'm using (not the one pictured). I've cleaned up all the female and male splines. My splined pieces will easily slide into any of the 4 female splines on the 2 u-joints. I can't see any difference in the rack pinion male splines other than a few "missing" splines that help align the joint in a particular way. But for the life of me, I can't get any of the other female splines to slide over the male rack pinion.

The easy way to manage all this would be to simply use aftermarket stuff -- but I've yet to find anyone that makes the 19mm x 46 spline stuff required to match up with the pinion.

What am I missing? Thanks in advance --- Michael
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82 242 6.2L coming...; '15 Honda Fit