Steering Column / Ignition Cylinder / Turn Signal Repair

[f1shman]

I'm trying to get a little done on the truck when I can during the week. I only managed to squeeze in about 45 minutes today between other projects. I picked up a tilt column for the truck a while back and I've been meaning to get around to putting it in, so I decided to give it a go. I did want to keep a few things from the column that's already in the truck, namely the steering wheel and simplified turn signal switch assembly, that's the reason I'm tearing into it.

If you've never dug into a steering column before it's a fun process. You'll see two special tools used in the photos. One is the steering wheel puller, the other is a steering wheel lock plate remover. Both are available from most big name parts stores. You should also get some dental picks from Harbor Freight and a pair of retaining ring (circlip) pliers.

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You can see a clip on the column shaft right above the lock nut. That comes out rather easy with external retaining ring pliers.

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A couple things to note in this next photo. You'll see two threaded holes at the 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions. Those are the holes you use to thread the bolts into for the steering wheel puller. I was wondering why there was a switch for the horn on the dashboard. I guess now I know. This put a real damper on my day since I was looking forward to using this wheel on the other column. I hope that I can piece it together with the horn wiring from the tilt column and get it to work properly.

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This is the steering wheel lock plate removal tool in action. You can see a little clip on the steering column shaft that I am pointing at with my dental pick. The tool presses against the lock plate to relieve the spring pressure holding it against this clip so that you can dig it out. Don't waste your time trying to do this without the tool, it costs less than $10 and makes things much easier.

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This is a shot of the turn signal switch. There are five bolts and a wiring harness holding this thing into the column, so it's easy to remove once you get to this point in the column disassembly process.

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While I was under the dash uncoupling the column wiring harness I saw this rat's nest of wiring. It was completely unhooked already, but was just sitting there hooked back with zip ties. I can't wait to dive into the rest of the wiring harness to see what other fine examples of craftsmanship I can uncover.

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On the other side of the firewall there are more connections to separate. The round headed bolt facing you in this picture has to be taken out from the steering shaft before the shaft can be pried away from the column. You also need to remove the shift lever. That wonderful little pin that you can see holding it in there decided it didn't want to leave it's home and ended up breaking on me. It snapped on both ends of the rod, leaving a section of itself rusted in place inside the hole. I'll have to see if I can punch it out tomorrow.

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[89Suburban]

Awesome write up bro! I love this ****. Wire nuts, gotta love'm, lol!!!!

 

[f1shman]

I snapped a few pics of the shift arm so you can share in my merriment. The first picture is the remnants of the pin that is supposed to be removable from the arm. Obviously this is no longer the case for mine since a chunk of it broke off before the arm, and the other chunk broke off after the arm. The second shot shows the last chunk which is still in the arm. Sorry about the fuzzy picture, I think the camera needs some fresh batteries.

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Now, if you are wondering how the progress on the steering column is going, this should give you a hint. The bar you see in front of the column is the actual shaft that should be riding inside the column. This one separated itself due to not wanting to uncouple from it's rusty connection to the steering shaft (see the next pic down). I was able to slide it back into the column without any issue but this is the first time I ever removed a column in pieces.

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This shaft connection should slide at this point. I'm hoping that a little penetrating oil will help things move along.

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So with the old column out the new column could slide into place. A few things to note in this shot, the cleanliness (or lack thereof) of the column, and the shift indicator. This had to be the nastiest column on record. There was greasy dirt all over this thing. There was enough crap on it to make me actually want to take a break to clean it before I even started working on it. You might have noted in some of the other pictures that my old shift indicator was still good. Well, it was good until I went to remove the wire from it. You see, I was a little lazy and didn't want to remove the entire dash plastic just to unbolt the shift indicator to work the wire out of it. Instead, I reached in with my dental pick and worked the wire out while the plastic was in place. The dental pick did the job rather well. Unfortunately, the lever on the indicator wasn't long for this world and snapped off in the process. Good thing I had a spare. I stopped being a lazy bum and took the dash apart to install it.

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Just to give you an example of how dirty this column was, this is the rag that I cleaned the rubber grip on the end of the shifter with. This is just dirt from the shifter, nothing else. Keep scrolling for a few other "before" shots.

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I'll show you the "after" pictures of the steering wheel a little later.

This shot is with the lock plate removed, looking at the turn signal switch on the new tilt column. Unfortunately, this column will not allow me to use my old turn signal switch, since the column plastic is different. I don't know if getting plastics from an earlier tilt column would fit it or not, but for now I'll just live with the multi-function stalk. That makes me 0 for 2 on the things I wanted to save from my last column. I should have just taken the dang thing out without tearing into it at all.

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I wanted to change out the ignition switch on this column, so I pulled the screws for the turn signal switch out and moved it out of the way to expose the screw that I'm pointing to here. Just remove that screw and...

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... you can pop your ignition out.

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Again, it's a good thing I had a spare.

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With the switch swapped out there wasn't anything left for me to do except to button things back up. Note the spring on the column shaft.

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Remember the problems I was having with the old GMC steering wheel? I was missing quite a few parts for the horn assembly. It seems like that's a reoccuring problem with steering columns that I own since the plastic contact piece for the horn was broken in the new column (white piece). Since the old column wasn't really using the contact for anything I decided to use it instead. You can see that the pieces are slightly different in the picture. This caused me to not be able to put the clip back on that holds the lock plate down until I also swapped the spring from the previous photo with the shorter version from the old column. That little issue had me scratching my head for a few minutes.

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Alright, here are you "after" pictures. Trust me, you really don't want to see the paper towels I used to clean this thing.

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And here we have the column installed. I still have little things to tie up, like putting the dash plastic back on, attaching the column to the steering shaft once the penetrating oil frees up it's slide adjustment, address the horn wiring in the cab to remove the now unnecessary aftermarket horn button and drill out the shift linkage. Oh, and figure out how I can get a horn button that says GMC.

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[89Suburban]

HELL YEAH!!

What is that spray bottle stuff?

 

[f1shman]

Pledge multi surface. It worked ok. It was a runner up choice that I used only because I couldn't locate my bottle of simple green.

 

[Old77]

Wow that wheel looks awesome now!!! nice write up/build thread you're creating with this stuff!!!

 

[byproxy]

sorry to resurrect an old thread but wondering if anyone has suggestions for cheapest places for lock plate removal tool. i can get the wheel puller locally for 10 bucks. but the lock plate tool from same store is $35. for a tool i'll probably only use once (or a couple times at best), the cheaper the better.

thanks!

 

[myC-dime]

loaner tool program at most of the auto stores have them available.

 

[Stroked]

sorry to resurrect an old thread but wondering if anyone has suggestions for cheapest places for lock plate removal tool. i can get the wheel puller locally for 10 bucks. but the lock plate tool from same store is $35. for a tool i'll probably only use once (or a couple times at best), the cheaper the better.

thanks!

I bought a steering wheel puller and lock plate compressor together in a kit from Harbor Freight for something like $23. It was on sale plus I had a 20% off coupon. Do a google search and you can print off the coupon.

I already had a wheel puller, but this whole kit was the same price as just the lock plate compressor elsewhere, plus it all came in a decent case. I've used it and I've loaned it out to 2 co-workers and no complaints so far.

 

[1sic4x4]

Great info thx. Will be working on mine in the near future.

 

[towjoe]

just a heads up some of the earlier ignition tumblers don't stay in with a screw, they have a lock tab at front of cylinder (from turn signal switch compartment) that needs to be pressed in to release them to pull them out. I'm wanting to say 73-77 era ones were the ones I'm talking about

 

[MrMarty51]

just a heads up some of the earlier ignition tumblers don't stay in with a screw, they have a lock tab at front of cylinder (from turn signal switch compartment) that needs to be pressed in to release them to pull them out. I'm wanting to say 73-77 era ones were the ones I'm talking about

I`m still trying to figure out where that lock tab is at, the book says to take a piece of rod and go down into that hole a depress the lock tab, I`m using a small piece of flat material like it shows in the booook an I`ve poked an proded all over down in there, nothing yet.

On another note.
Using that lockplate compressor tool.
If You screw the tool down as far as it can go, on the end of the steering shaft, then after You cuss an swear enough that that little corclip finally gives up its groove, then slide that circlip all the way up, onto the outside of the tool and it`ll make getting it slid back onto the shaft a lot nicer.
Juz a sayin.

 

[towjoe]

It's a small flat one in the compartment after taking out turn signal switch as deep as the tumbler. I don't have any old school column apart or I would get you a picture. If you have a new tumbler with lock tab you can hold it up there to see where it would be and what your looking for. It's a tough one to find and the tumblers that are held in with a screw won't stay in the old column. Been there done that lol and you get funny looks putting the tumbler in to start your truck and taking it out like a key lol.