a body steering rod in column removal?

If you're talking about pulling the center shaft out, you need to start by pulling the whole column out of the car. If your car is a floor shift, that's relatively easy. Pull the steering wheel, unplug the turn signal switch, remove the roll pin holding the coupler to the steering gear, unbolt the floor plate around the column, and then the two nuts holding a plate that holds the column to the dash. Now, if you have a manual trans 3 speed on the column, you'll also need to unhook the shift linkage at the base of the column in the engine compartment. If you have a column shift auto (heaven help you, especially of it's a V8) you need to take the shift cables loose. Careful with the rubber boot that covers those cables. I don't think anyone makes a replacement for it. Being 55 years old, it's likely to be fragile.