Odd steering problem...

diesel458

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So, all the steering issues I have heard of are about wandering and play left to right. But my steering wheel is sort of hanging out of the column and drooping. If you push the wheel toward the engine bay, it will square up and the "clock spring" pins drop into the contact track, and steering feels good. But the spring on the wheel side of the u joint under the dash pushes the wheel back out to the driver. Is this a common issue? Tracked it to where the shaft goes square after the u joint. The square shaft moves up and down inside the round shaft going the the gearbox. Don't see a lock on the square shaft guessing it's a floating shaft, and the problem is in the column?

Hope that all made sense...

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Rick
 

79jasper

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It's the column. You can rebuilt it, kit is about $100. Not counting if something is egged out.
Better off finding a good used one.

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Edit: problem is people use the wheel as a grab handle to get in. So it wears out the bearings.
 

diesel458

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Gotcha. I'll hit the junk yard tomorrow before work. Do I need a year specific column? Or one in the same body style range?

Thanks!
 

79jasper

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Same body style.
Preferably 250 and 350 as they won't have the airbag, but 150 will still work.


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sjwelds

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Not that hard to replace bearings in the column. I did mine here a while back. Made a world of difference. Now I try not to use the steering wheel to get in, as 79jasper said.

Course if you can find a column probably even easier.
 

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