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I'll try. when you pull the horn button off you will see the lever for the telescoping lock. It attaches to a star shaped bolt using a small screw. If all that is attached then you will have to move the lock lever toward lock, remove the screw and then move the lever back to line up the next screw hole and re-install it.
The star shaped bolt basically pushes on a long rod that goes on down and causes a half moon shaped woodruff key to be pushed outward to lock against the shaft to stop it from going up or down. What you will be doing is screwing the star shaped bolt in further.
If this doesn't make sense I will try to find pics or a diagrahm.
If the rod is missing from the mechanism the column won't lock. I had my column out and turned it upside-down and the rod fell out and the column wouldn't lock. Jim Shea straightened me out on that problem, but I don't know if the rod shows up on diagrams. If you can turn the ring and it tightens then the star wheel is probably OK and you are missing the rod piece.
Here is a blowup of the 1976 T&T steering wheel and telescope lock. I am afraid that the picture is not the best. The star screw is called out as #3 in the picture. The rod is not shown. It would be about 4 inches long and would be right under the star screw. It would pass through all of the components and would slide right down inside the steering shaft that is just sticking out from the steering column in the picture.
Hope that this helps,
Jim
Fonz,
Disconnect your battery.
Use a small screwdriver to reach under your horn cap and remove it.
Remove the three screws and the upper horn contact.
Remove the two screws that hold the telescope lever to the star screw.
Use a large phillips screwdriver to loosen and tighten the star screw.
Does "adjusting" the star screw allow your telescope function to work easier?
I turn the star screw in with the phillips so that it locks the telescope function.
Then I reinstall the above hardware with the telescope lever in a nearly full clockwise location. (You will have several places where you can reattach the lever to the star screw.) Now with the lever installed and rotating it CCW the column should telescope freely.
One thing to keep in mind. You can put a lot more torque on the star screw with the T&T locking lever than you can with just a phillips screwdriver. So when you tighten with the screwdriver so that the column shaft stops telescoping, you will still be able to tighten it a bit further when the locking lever is reinstalled. That is why I mentioned attaching the lever to the star screw in "a nearly full CW location."
Fonz,
Disconnect your battery.
Use a small screwdriver to reach under your horn cap and remove it.
Remove the three screws and the upper horn contact.
Remove the two screws that hold the telescope lever to the star screw.
Use a large phillips screwdriver to loosen and tighten the star screw.
Does "adjusting" the star screw allow your telescope function to work easier?
I turn the star screw in with the phillips so that it locks the telescope function.
Then I reinstall the above hardware with the telescope lever in a nearly full clockwise location. (You will have several places where you can reattach the lever to the star screw.) Now with the lever installed and rotating it CCW the column should telescope freely.
One thing to keep in mind. You can put a lot more torque on the star screw with the T&T locking lever than you can with just a phillips screwdriver. So when you tighten with the screwdriver so that the column shaft stops telescoping, you will still be able to tighten it a bit further when the locking lever is reinstalled. That is why I mentioned attaching the lever to the star screw in "a nearly full CW location."
Hope that this helps,
Jim
Thanks for the advice, I have the column out of the car at this time but I will check out what you described
Here's some pictures I took when I converted my '76 to a '75 wheel. I don't recall seeing a "rod" however the T&T function works properly.
Tab,
If you take off the star screw there is a hole underneath. The rod is down in the hole. I believe what happens is when the star screw is tightened it pushes down on the rod and the rod stops the telescoping function using unseen powerful forces, possibly derived from UFO technology. I got into trouble when I took off the star screw and then inverted the column. The rod fell out onto the floor and I had no idea where it came from in the column. Thankfully Jim was able to tell me how to get things back in order. As he mentioned, the rod is not shown in the column assembly drawing.
If you take off the star screw there is a hole underneath. The rod is down in the hole. I believe what happens is when the star screw is tightened it pushes down on the rod and the rod stops the telescoping function using unseen powerful forces, possibly derived from UFO technology. I got into trouble when I took off the star screw and then inverted the column. The rod fell out onto the floor and I had no idea where it came from in the column. Thankfully Jim was able to tell me how to get things back in order. As he mentioned, the rod is not shown in the column assembly drawing.
Rick B.
Rick, strange... I went through changing all that stuff but I never moved the column from the table I was working which explains why I didn't see the rod. I think I see the tip of it in the picture (link) below. The method that is described is how I tightened the telescoping. I thought it was a little "rinky dinky" design... Sorry Jim!!
Here is a sectioned picture of the T&T column head. You can see the locking rod. It pushes against a half circular steel piece with a notch taken out of it called a wedge.
The star screw is threaded into the end of the telescoping upper shaft. When you tighten the star screw it pushes on the rod and the rod tips the wedge and ***** it against the upper steering shaft yoke locking the two parts together.