Mopar steering column has a collapsible shaft, second try.
I had been putting off this hellish job of centering my steering wheel because well it's PITA ('69 Barracuda). My front end is aligned by a shop but the previous owner put the steering wheel in 180 degrees off and turn signal wouldn't cancel. Anyways during our first attempt on removal of the column the steering coupler came apart so we had to put it back together. So we lined everything up on center and attempted to push the coupler and column into the steering box but WTF we couldn't get it in far enough to put the coupler pin in. It was about an inch too short now.
So during our struggles we somehow collapsed the shaft an inch. An internet search told us how to correct it but we improvised. We put the column face down on the steering wheel after removing the coupler again. The shaft pins were now exposed and we put vice grips underneath and gave it a couple whacks upwards until we exposed an inch of shaft and carefully put things back together: picture steering3 (scratch marks) shows how much we moved it.
Picture steering1: column dropped
Picture steering2: getting ready for install
I should have taken more pictures but I hope this might help somebody. Btw it helps having an automotive engineer as a neighbour. :thumbsup:
I had been putting off this hellish job of centering my steering wheel because well it's PITA ('69 Barracuda). My front end is aligned by a shop but the previous owner put the steering wheel in 180 degrees off and turn signal wouldn't cancel. Anyways during our first attempt on removal of the column the steering coupler came apart so we had to put it back together. So we lined everything up on center and attempted to push the coupler and column into the steering box but WTF we couldn't get it in far enough to put the coupler pin in. It was about an inch too short now.
So during our struggles we somehow collapsed the shaft an inch. An internet search told us how to correct it but we improvised. We put the column face down on the steering wheel after removing the coupler again. The shaft pins were now exposed and we put vice grips underneath and gave it a couple whacks upwards until we exposed an inch of shaft and carefully put things back together: picture steering3 (scratch marks) shows how much we moved it.
Picture steering1: column dropped
Picture steering2: getting ready for install
I should have taken more pictures but I hope this might help somebody. Btw it helps having an automotive engineer as a neighbour. :thumbsup: