To quote a perjuring prez from the last decade, "I feel your pain."
I'm the guy who did the '78 250 engine rebuild and then swapped it from the rusted domestic steel GMC into a Canuck made almost rustless 1984 Chevy that the VIN said originally had the same setup with a 250 and the 3 speed column shift. The ONLY glitch for the entire swap and rebuild procedure was the column shift and its attendant problems. (Now I understand why the guy who I bought it from butchered the floor and put a floor shift in).
After buying a complete column from an auto supplier, finding that didn't quite work, and having the column disassambled and it still locking up, I took it to a dealership where they replaced the shifter shaft inside the column itself. That part lasted 357 days, and then the fork at the end of the column in front of the firewall broke off, but Mr. Goodwrench said, "no problem, you have 8 days left on the warranty." I still have it pop out of second gear if I don't carefully and slowly move it into second, otherwise okay. Needless to say, I keep it lubricated and when May rolls around, I am taking it to the dealer again and having it checked, just in case. There was only one mechanic there in the entire region who knew how to work on column shift mechanisms, so be forewarned...you won't find a lot of help out there.
