my whacked column rebuild

[Raider L]

Here's what I've done so far dealing with the rack and sector gear and spring.

Yeah, I know slow as Christmas.

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[Raider L]

Man, I thought I cleaned the inside where the lock shoe springs are in photo #2. That looks nasty. I'll have to spray it out tomorrow. I've got some grease in there and I guess I need to remove it all and regrease it.

If you look at some of these photos from other sites I've come across you'd think the people were greasing a locomotive what with tons of grease in this particular bearing support. It's the one that has all the ball bearings and spring loaded things inside of it. But how often does this part move? Are you constantly whipping the steering column up and down in tilt mode? And does it need to be heavily greased? No, not at all. As a matter of a fact it needs very little grease. And if you look at how much grease is used on the big spring that goes to the tilt lock shoes you'd think it was aircraft landing gear. Forget all that people. Just put some on the spring, very lightly. If you're thinking these parts will rust then there are good spray lubricants that you can put in there... sparingly. The ball bearings in the same part don't need to be drenched in grease, put some on the balls and wipe off the excess. For as little as the steering shaft will be turning, there is no need to think they will be spinning like a wheel bearing. It won't, it will be moving very little. If you think about it I would bet the ball bearings in the front bearing support wouldn't even be making one complete turn around in the housing.

So stop packing all the grease in these bearing supports, people. There isn't a single part that should be more than lightly greased.

 

[Raider L]

Sorry, that's in photo #1, forward of the sector gear. And there's a bit to much behind the sector gear to. I'll clean all that off tomorrow. A Q-tip would work good cleaning all that grease up inside that support.

 

[Raider L]

For all of you from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana are you all ready for the big freeze??

We all went our separate ways today and my wife and son gassed up and got more groceries and stuff we might need. I borrowed my wife's Subaru B-9 Tribeca and went and got some more groceries and flash light, and radio batteries. I listen to the radio fifteen hours a day, every day. Everyone in this house eats at a separate time and completely different food. It's weird. My wife stopped cooking years ago so there is no such thing as "supper time" in this house. You eat whenever the mood strikes you.

 

[MikeB]

Sounds like the OP is well on his way, but this is for future reference: I bought a very nice rebuilt column from Wayne at GM Tilt back around 2015. His after the sale support was great. I highly recommend him.

http://gmtiltsteeringcolumn.com/

 

[Raider L]

After I fixed the shift tube issue I went ahead and put the steering shaft in along with the install of the short shaft. Last night I didn't want to put it in because I wasn't quite ready since I found out the thing with the shift tube being to long. But since that turned out okay after I was able to tap it back.
Here's a photo of how it looks now:

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I have all kinds of slot now where before there was barely enough to stick the tang from the neutral safety switch.

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If you look at the key in this photo (above) of the rear bearing support you might be able to see the extra space next to the key mechanism. I checked inside the support where the key mechanism lock tab sticks into that little slot, it was all the way into the hole for the key mechanism. It looked like the key mech. was sticking out to far. But you don't have to push the key in far to get the key to start turning. I tried to turn the key with it like it is and I couldn't. That tells me the key mech. is working like it should.

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This photo shows the steering wheel locking pin as it's in it's part of the rear housing. It looked to me to be to far forward and would interfer with the steering wheel locking plate. But I was mistaken on where the groove for the wire locking ring goes and secures the steering wheel locking plate. I looked at how"89Suburban"'s was in his column tear down, the pin was in the same location as mine here so I believe mine will be fine. I don't remember how this was supposed to look and the owner's manual I have doesn't have any good photos. I've had to search all over this site and many others to try and find good photos and You Tube videos to find how to do this right so I don't have any problems at all into the future. Sorry, I lack the computer skills to know how to put red arrows on the photo that look so great, like some of you guys do. The steering wheel locking pin (the silver dot)

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is to the left of the top phillips screw which secures this front housing to the front bearing support.
This photo (above) of the end of the steering shaft I'm pointing to, is the wear mark on the steering shaft where the ball bearing goes that rides inside the plastic bushing that goes in the end of the mast tube here. I explained in another post, in the wrong location and should have been on this rebuild posts, that I had a problem when I discovered that I had moved the shifter tube that slides inside the smaller upper tube. This is part of the collision collapse system. I had moved it in taking the column apart and didn't know it. It slid away from the smaller upper tube and I had to tap it back in to gain the space I needed to be able to put the plastic bushing in. With the ball bearing that goes inside the bushing and over the steering shaft end here, it was adjusted and now it will go in over this end of the shaft like it should.

 

[Raider L]

Here's a pic of the shaft end in it's bearing and cover.

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disregard the date and time on the pic. I used another camera to take these photos. My Canon is on the blink.

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this photo is of the kind of horn plate in my truck. It has a ground wire that goes up to the other plate behind the horn button. The wire broke off today and I had to solder it back onto the little tiny thing that sits on top of the spring inside the turn signal canceller with this little plug thing that turns and locks into the post there.

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Another view. This is the bottom part that turns on the carbon pile that's on the turn signal assembly.

 

[Raider L]

As soon as the damn ice and snow melts I'll be able to get to the auto parts store and get a new turn signal switch, or whatever it's called, i.e. assembly, and then I'll be able to finish assembling my column. I'm really looking forward to getting the column back into my truck since it's been, I don't remember, maybe seven years or so since my truck was broke into and those guys destroyed my column trying to steal the truck. It will be exciting to actually be able to properly steer the truck like it was designed to do and not rigged like I had it. It was so dangerous to drive it like it was. No one else could drive the truck but me. I'll actually be able to shift gears like a normal person instead of moving a bolt to get it in gear. I won't know what to do when I can actually use the turn signal instead of having it hanging off the side of the what was left of the column with a damn screw holding it on the column.

If anyone is interested in what it looked like you can go to my posts under this section, Suspension, Steering, & Brakes under the heading "My whacked column" and you can get an idea of what I had to deal with. Like, I had doctors appointments to go to. What else could I do. You know, life goes on and there are things you just have to get done and places you just have to get to. You do what you have to do until you can deal with things, like in my case, the thing stopped me when it just wouldn't start no matter what I did.

It was a problem I had never had before, I had no idea what to look for to diagnose the problem. Until I went to the last thing it could be, the neutral safety switch, that I discovered it was out of position and as soon as I moved it to "Park" then the engine cranked right up. So, let this be a lesson to anyone whose interested, that if the truck won't start when you try to start it with a remote start switch, it's either the battery is completely dead, or it's the neutral safety switch has failed, or is out of position. Of course there are a dozen other things it could be, but if you have tried everything else of course then it's more than likely the neutral safety switch.

 

[hoagster]

I know, details, details, details. Most people haven't ever seen these parts let alone want to know anything about them. Ohhh, but when they can't turn their key or something is jammed then they will be wondering what's in the column hanging it up.

I'll be doing the whole column like this.

Interesting my truck is a 73 k10 and I can't start it with the key, I can turn the truck on i.e. have power but can't start the truck. I had to wire in a push button and bypass the that portion of the starting system. Thank you, I have the steering column out I'm going to investigate it and see if I can fix that portion. Thank you!

 

[Raider L]

This photo is of the locking plate and it's hardware in order of install.

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The photo below is of that "band" that sits behind the spring. This band is necessary so the back of the spring isn't digging into the upper bearing seal, which is to the right in the photo above. Strangely the factory manual doesn't show this part. It's what came out of my column and has always been in it.

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I know these photos suck, but I'm using another camera that is a cheap Walmart brand while I try to fix my Canon camera. So please forgive. I guess you'll have to use your imagination in guessing what these parts look like clear.

 

[Raider L]

Heck, last night I caught myself about to order a turn signal switch off the internet. "Well dummy, how the hell is it supposed to get to you, the highways and streets a froze solid there's no cars or trucks on the road!" And then I wandered over to Advance Auto Parts and was looking at that site and caught myself again when I realized, "There is no cars allowed on the streets except in an emergency how you going to get there, if you made it, to find the store closed like all the other stores are closed,....Dummy!" Our asses are froze in here, water mains busted all over town, our water is barely coming out of the fauset, we can go anywhere or do anything,... "and you're talking about goin' and gettin' car parts!.....Dummy"

I think that after a week of being house bound I'm goin' ster-crazy!

 

[Raider L]

In the paragraph above, next to last sentance it should read "...We can't go anywhere or do anything..."

 

[Raider L]

Here is the turn signal cam (it's broken and I'm showing it for example only). This photo is of the turn signal lever screw nut that fits in the back.

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And this (below) is where it goes in the back of the cam. You can see how the hole in the cam is hex also.

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And with the lever (photo below).

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[Raider L]

I was thinking about that "band" that goes behind the spring that sits behind the lock plate. My maint. book doesn't show this part and I wondered why. So I have those Haynes maint. books. I have one on the 1970 to 1981 Camero's and one on the Chevy II"s and Nova's. I looked in the Camero book to see what it showed in the exploded view of it's tilt column. In the exploded view it showed that part behind the spring and it called it a "thrust" washer. And that was for the '74 Camero tilt column. Now, why would they show it in the Haynes book for a Camero and not in my maint. book which is a factory book, not some reprint off Ebay, for my '74 truck?

 

[Raider L]

I went back and looked at the '62 to '79 Chevy II & Nova Chilton book and it didn't have any reference to the break down of the steering column at all. All it showed was how to take the steering wheel off on a Nova. It had all the other info and diagrams, and photos of the entire suspension of both the Chevy II and the Nova, but no columns.