You will also need to beef up the floor/toe board attachment point for your new column. There is a lot of torque going on with the manual steering box. If you are going to go with bartamos' suggestion of using u-joint/coupler, you will no longer have a solid, stable one-piece steering mast bolted solidly to the frame at one end and the bottom of the dash on the other. I have fabricated a piece of plate steel of the same size and shape as the original steering mast seal/flange that is located at the junction of the floor and toe board. I welded it to the steering mast, thus providing an extra, solid mount. This modification was done for adding power steering to an original steering mast, but the same principles apply for your use.
