Today I finally got my column back in and attached to the sterring box properly. For those of you who have not seen my previous posts I have attached some pics of the problems I was having. As you know some if not all of our C3's have collapsable columns. What happens is when you are in a hard front end collision the bottom shaft will collapse on itself by sheering off the hard plastic injected pins. Once this happens it is a real PITA to get back out. this can also occur by dropping the column on its end.

I have read other methods that people have used including pulling on the end, hitting the end with a hammer (Not recommended) and using a pry bar to pull the column back out to the proper length. Although these methods may have worked for others i had no luck with 2 of the 3 and did not want to try the hammer method.

Here is what I did and it was easy and provided little stress on the column bearings and the column housing.

with the column removed from the car I reinstalled the top coupling of the rag joint to the lower shaft and tightened the pinch bolt as tight as I could get it. I then placed it on a flat surface where I could rest the firewall bracket against a solid surface so that I could put pulling pressure on the lower shaft without the column moving. I then wrapped one end of a come along around the coupling and lower shaft. I attached the top hook to a hard fixed point. I placed a peice of masking tape on the shaft up against the lower shaft bearing so that I could tell how much if at all the shaft pulled out. Lastly I slowly cranked on the come along handle with a smooth constant preassure. The shaft easily pulled out to the proper length within a few seconds and produced very little stress on any of the enternal parts and the housing. After all this I reinstalled the column and hooked the shaft to the steering box with ease.

I highly recommend this method and hope this helps out others with this problem.

 

Good idea using the come-along. I will add your idea to my steering column Disassambly & Repair papers.

Jim

 

BlackRat: Can you do me a favor? When you reassemble the column, measure how much of the splined area is showing out of the coupler? As I said in the other thread, I measured a group of C3 Vettes that were gathered at a Lars tuning session in Chicago recently. EVERY ONE of the Vettes I measured (a 1968, 1969, and two 1972s) showed 11/16ths of the splines outside of the coupler. This is half the total length of the splined area (1 3/8).
This matches what is showing on my 1972 standard column that I removed, and will also match the tilt and telescopic column that I am installing. I simply can't believe that there are all these Vettes running around with collapsed steering columns.
The one 1979 Vette I saw had the splines completely hidden.

Dep

 

BlackRat, your second pic is not loading all the way.

 

Looks fine to me. Get off that dialup!!!

Dep

 

You will expect to see some variation in the length of steering column splines that are exposed behind the detachable column flange.

The column shaft has a 1/2 inch long notch for the pinch bolt to pass through. This allows the detachable flange to be positioned anywhere along the notch so that the rubber disc on the flex coupling can be flat and not stressed. The 1/2 inch long notch is to allow for body to frame build tolerances.

 

Dep,

I will measure that for you this evening. I can tell you this though. I could not get the pinch bolt to line up until I adjusted the collar I want to say at least half way down the splined portion of the shaft. This is where the machined flat area allows the bolt to pass through and line up. As long as your coupler is past this point and the bolt can be tightened up I don't see where you would have any problems.

Wade

 

Jim: Okay...sounds good.
Actually,the exposed length of splines on the chrome bumper C3s I looked at was quite consistent at 11/16 inch.

Wade: I don't anticipate any problems with the install of my T&T, since the shaft length is identical to the old one. I won't know for a while, though, because I am also installing a manual trans pedal assembly and I am waiting for delivery of a sandblaster so I can clean the surface rust spots off of it and paint it. A pic of the final install by you would be greatly appreciated.

Dep