Hello all,

Full disclosure that I've searched this forum and read Jim Shea's papers on aligning the steering wheel but still can't completely figure this out so please bear with my ignorance and beginnerish questions. Guessing this is something easy that I'm just not understanding.

This is my 74 with PS and has all the original steering components. I had a lot of slop in the steering wheel and after reading much on here, figured I'd start with the rag joint. The original one was completely worn out and falling apart. I did not collapse the steering column but rather unbolted the steering gear from the frame to give myself the clearance needed to slip the joint out. Cleaned the splines and everything back up and put the new joint on (used the Lars 200 joint). Problem is that the steering gear's flat spot is at 12:00 as pictured but that does not line up with the flat spot on the steering shaft. This in turn makes the top of the steering wheel point to around 1:00 when the tires are straight and going down the road. I took the horn assembly off to check the position of the notch and it is pictured below with the wheel at 12:00 (it looks correct to me). Before I did this job, the steering wheel was off a few degrees in the same direction but nothing like what it is now so it is clearly something I did. Thought the flat spot and splines could only go one way when they are all correctly lined up but maybe I'm wrong?

Reading Jim's paper, I see his mention regarding that C2 and C3 corvettes have specific instructions on aligning the steering column with the steering gear and to reference the AIM or service manual for directions, however my factory AIM manual and factory service manuals make no real mention of how to align. It appears to me that, when sitting in the drivers seat, if the steering column shaft were to be rotated counterclockwise, the flat spot on the steering shaft would line up with the flat spot on the steering gear. Again, I'm probably missing something easy but wanted to check. Thank you.

EDIT: Just as an FYI, I just took these photos with the steering flange bolts removed from the joint so yes, I did put them in. 90% of the original steering slop was removed with the new joint.

A bit hard to tell in this picture that the steering gear flat spot and steering column flat spot do not line up


Another photo where I've marked the middle of the flat spots to show the difference

This is how the steering wheel currently sits with the tires pointed straight ahead

 

Did you take the steering wheel off if you did there is a mark on the steering hub and the shaft must be lined up hope this helps

 

I had the identical problem with our 1972. After a rebuild of the steering gear and the addition of a new coupler, plus removing for cleanup the lower column flange, the steering wheel was off by 90 degrees to the left when driving on a straight section of highway. I had the flat spots on the column and gear aligned, so I thought I was OK. It turns out that even though the coupler and flange mount to the gear and column only one way, there is a 2-spline or so arc of tolerance that can be utilized.
Remove the two nuts at the column's firewall connection, loosen all flange and coupler connections, remove the two column-to-brace bolts under the instrument panel, pull the column back 'into' the cabin far enough to allow the coupler/flange to pull free of the splines and then I'll bet you can rotate the coupler/flange one or two splines to fix your issue. Since your wheel is angled to the right when your wheels are straight, you'll want to rotate the flange/coupler clockwise along the column axis, as viewed from inside the car.
It'll be easier if you have a helper inside the car to hold and support the column while it's disconnected, plus, they can assist in pushing the column back into the coupler/flange when that time comes.
This worked for me; good luck to you.