I replaced the steering shaft on my 84 for a newer unit with a rag joint that does not have any play. (unlike my old OEM 84' unit.) Anyways on the replacement shaft the couplers on the ends are at different degrees than the original one. So now when I have my left turn signal on I can move the wheel 1/2" either way and it trips the turn signal to turn off and when I turn right 90% of the time it doesn't turn off as I don't turn far enough. Is there a fix to this problem? Some type of plate that trips the turn signal that can be adjusted or something? I also changed my steering wheel so I was able to position the wheel how I wanted. If I still had the OEM wheel it would be way out of whack.

 

Would you guess that it's 180* out of correct index? Did you have to rotate the steering column shaft 180* to make it fit the other intermediate shaft? Do you know which year you used for the intermediate shaft OR do you know the part number? Do you have a snapshot of he one you used before the install?

Where are you located? Do you have a FSM?

 

The steering wheel is maybe 1/4 of a turn off.
This is the style shaft I used. Not the exact one but looks exactly the same.

It was listed as a 94-96 steering shaft but I had read that you can use basically any year steering shaft. I do not have a FSM, I'm in NY.

 

I originally tried to keep the wheel locked in place but the new shaft did not go in exactly like the old one so I unlocked the wheel and during the attempts to install it the wheel spun around quite a few times so I have no exact idea where the wheel was but I didn't think it would be a big issue as it does not have a clock spring and just spins. It's also a Z51 car so one rotation and its back to where it should be anyways.

 

It doesn't just "spin". The cancelling cam on an early column is indexed to the column yoke and it could be off by 180* maybe but I don't have an '84 or '85 column to check the lower most shaft in the column. '84 - '85 used a different lower shaft in the column and the mast jacket was different also. If you had told me that it was 180* out I believe the yoke at the top of the column could be rotated that 180* very easily.

You said it was off so it's very difficult to tell if you paid so little attention to what you did. The lower shaft in the column is the same from '86 - '89 and so is the intermediate shaft. I wasn't aware of any difference in the '84 or '85 until I looked and I can't confirm the difference visually.

You also mention changing the steering wheel so you had to use some sort of adapter to attach the after-market (I'm assuming) steering wheel.

What I don't know is if the yoke is rotated whether the wedge and rod that controls telescoping will be functional.

Could you maybe have destroyed the cancelling cam function and the turn-signal switch interaction when you did the steering wheel install? Maybe.

Does the telescoping function still work? What brand of steering wheel and adapter to mount it?

Your thought that just because it's a 2 - turn rack it makes no difference is also flawed. If it's not indexed correctly at install it's never correct!

 

If I unhook the steering shaft I can freely spin the wheel. It has no resistance to that. It just spins. The turn signal and canceling cam all work it's just the column shaft is in a different position. For example if you unbolted the wheel on a stock car, turned it to the right 1/4 of a turn then bolted it back up in the wrong position so the turn signal cams are off that's what I am dealing with. The steering shaft I installed must make the wheel turned to the right more. I installed a 95 Vette wheel and used a file to make the necessary extra spline that the 84 column required.

 

FYI: My stock '84 steering system has NO slop or backlash.

Yes, that steering coupler is 90 degrees out of phase. The center section (drive shaft) needs to have the top yoke the same orientation as the bottom yoke. That's your problem.

Look at your main drive shaft, or your axle half shafts to see what I'm talking about. The yokes at each end must match!

 

Now that you have your older '84 IS in your hands get it refurbished and return it to the car OR if you're talented you might try rotating the yoke in the top of the column and see if that corrects your issue. Here's a cam for an early car and you can see how it's indexed by a flat on the yoke in the upper column. There is no adjust to it. Later column cams have a tower built into the cam and it's indexed directly to the steering wheel through a slot in the lock plate. The flat indexes the cam and the lobes that do the cancelling are at 9 & 11 o'clock as you can see in the image.



What did you do at the top of the column to use the '95 steering wheel? Other than modify the spline. How did you accomplish the horn? On the early steering wheel the tower for the horn wire is in the steering wheel but the '95 uses a molded tower on the cancelling cam.

 

I'm bringing this thread back to life as I'm going to to try again to fix this problem. I noticed all the C4 steering shafts are "Out of phase" as Hot Rod Roy had pointed out. I also noticed my 84' shaft is also "twisted" like all the other shafts. I think like was mentioned before my wheel may be 180 degrees off or my shaft might be 180 degrees off. We will see once I get the car out. I wanted to update this thread in case somebody else runs into the same problem. (So long as I'm able to fix the problem) Thanks for your help everyone!