The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Removing 70's steering column for replacement

Hey guys...

I'm curious if anyone else has had to remove an old steering column in order to replace it with an aftermarket column?

I bought a new Ididit steering column the other day and today attempted to remove the old one...

I am no expert on this (or anything else mechanical) but it looks like the P.O. welded the current column in place to the shaft of the steering box... see pics HERE

We tried in at least 1/2 dozen ways to get the current column to pull free with no luck and the more I look at it, the more it looks like the problem is under that weld...

Can anyone tell from looking at the pics if this is indeed accurate and if it is, does anyone have any good ideas on what I'd have to do to get the current steering column to let go so I can start installing the new one? If I have to cut it where should the cut be and what would be the easiest way of doing it? :confused:

Thanks in advance for your help...

~Trev

looks pretty scary, don't you want to upgrade to power steering? now is a good time

Trev,
Yuck !
I think for safety sake to just cut it an remove the PO's mess an start ANEW..that just isnt right !

I know guys... I know! It IS ugly :blat:

I'd love to have power steering in this old beast but wouldn't know where to start... hell, I'd be even more lost on what to do than I am now!

As it sits, I'm thinking I'd have to cut that 1" shaft somewhere around the weld , then have an adaptor or coupler built to put the new steering column together with the existing steering box shaft... yes?

If I were to upgrade to power steering what would I need and what would I get rid of? Would I pull out the original steering box, the column, the whole works and start from scratch?

The only issue I have with that is where anything more than I have in the truck would fit... is there even room for a power steering pump under there? The area under the hood in tiny... :confused:

Any ideas or suggestions you might have would be appreciated... thanks!

~Trev

I dunno what engine you have(I can see its an 8) or what room you have but the newer Jap & some GM cars have very small pumps. Basically you remove the box you have now & replace w/a power unit, mount a pump & hook up lines.

Fleetside...

I have a small block Chevy motor... a 327 and it is cramped under that hood already...

I wonder if the Jap stuff would work to make the conversion...? Somebody here must have done this before so I hope to hear from them...

~Trev

SW...

I've already ripped out all the wiring and installing a new wiring harness for the same reason! If you think the column is a mess you should see the "creativity" under the dash using small 6 inch sections of wiring, crimpers and electrical tape! These guys did some pretty amazing things down there... lol

I tore that all out yesterday when I hit a dead end with the steering column and will have to take a pic of what I found under the dash... it's pretty amazing! The wiring was SO far gone I had no other choice... we'll see what ideas I get for the column and if the steering box is worth salvaging or not but it would be very cool to have power steering IF we can make it work...

~Trev

You can cut that shaft off below the weld and get a special coupler for attaching the shaft of your new column to the unsplined shaft of your steering box. The coupler can be welded and/or pinned to your steering box shaft. Borgeson Co. has these as well as other steering u-joint suppliers.
Cut the shaft with a Sawzall or cut off wheel.

Yes. A rag joint, like rdavid said, would be the easiest, and as good as anything else. I'd help if I could, but I'm booked into next week. Good for me; I need the money. Do you have access to a hot wrench or some other way to whack through that weld? That's where I'd do it. Power steering on that truck would be far more pain than it's worth, I think. After you've driven it is the right time for that kind of judgement, though. Right now I think you have enough on your plate without piling more on.

I'd cut it off above the weld instead of below.

That way you can remove the column and the box but preserve as much as possible of the shaft as you consider your options.

My brother recently bought a '36 Dodge pickup with similar quality work. He has spent a year now cutting things out to redo them.

I agree and planned on installing a rag joint if at all possible so it could be removed in future if need be... the PO's Mickey Moused the wiring, the steering column and probably lots of other things I haven't even stumbled across yet, so I'm trying to correct them as I go which is why I chose to replace the column with the Ididit column now instead of going with the P.O.S. Chevy column that was in it...

As always, thanks for your help and suggestions, guys...

~Trev

A hot wrench is a cutting torch, Trev, There's a little local terminology for you. Do they call it that elsewhere, anyone?

I have an angle grinder which would work better than a saw. I'll have an hour or so Sunday..

yes hot shoe, here around cincinnati we call it a hot wrench or blue wrench. out in nebraska where i grew up it was a red wrench... just a little silly humor

smoke wrench, blue-tip wrench, gas axe,

Just an update from a custom steering shop here that Dave told me about...

I spoke with the guy and after seeing the pics of the previous installation, he said it should be 'cut below the bird poop' so there is a nice clean shaft to work with... he says once that is done that something can be fabricated to fit it so it will look and work well and be legal (apparently the way it is isn't legal... what a shock, huh? lol)

Anyway I'll probably end up getting this shop to do the fabrication of whatever I need to put it together properly once we get it cut... Hopefully Mark makes it by tomorrow with something to do the job and by the top of the week I can have the shop working on this...

Thanks to all who contributed their advice and ideas... much appreciated!

~Trev

Woohoo!!! The shaft is chopped now thanks to Mark and hopefully we can make some headway, get the rag joint fabricated and installed and then I only have my wiring left to do in order to be able to drive the '37...!

I'll post some pics of the transformation for all who were kind enough to offer advice and contribute their ideas... Thanks Mark!

~Trev

More Ididit news... (or should we call it a "Davedidit Column"?)

Dave came by tonight for a couple hours and after much thought, assembly, disassembly and gnashing of teeth, took his grinder to what was left of the shaft from the steering box

I'm happy to say that everything that came before the grinding was not in vain, and that the borgeson adapter from the Ididit column to the steering column shaft went in perfectly (and straight even... cool)!

This is great news 'cuz it means tomorrow and over the long weekend I can install the column floor mount, a reinforcement under the dash and the column drop and mount them permanently...

One more hurdle out of the way and then on to installing the wiring harness!

Thanks again to everyone for their suggestions and of course to Mark for cutting the old column free and Dave for making the new one work...

~Trev