I was driving my '86 Coupe yesterday and holding the wheel with one hand at the 12 o'clock position and felt that there was some north / south play in the column. I then grabbed the wheel with both hands and was able to get a decent amount of play (about 1/4") if I moved it up and down. There is zero side to side play. Is this up and down play normal and part of the tilt mechanism or do I have a problem waiting to happen. I'm not sure if this just happened or if it was always like this and I just never noticed. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

read this, not exactly the same thing, but potential problem, there is some kind of nylon disc in the column.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=926412

 

Thanks Frank, I may have to take the column apart and take a look at that nylon disc. I'm curious to hear from any others with this type problem.

 

I'm sure there are several sources of this problem. I also had a loose wheel, dismantled the column and tightened the torx head screws deep in the column. That fixed the looseness I had.

Art

 

Thanks for the reply Art. How hard was it it dismantle the column? Was the procedure in the Helms manual or is it pretty straight forward?

 

Off the top of my head, I removed the steering wheel, the lockplate and the spring etc. under the lock plate, disconnected the turn signal wiring at the base of the column, unhooked the connector off the column so when I pulled the turn signal switch up the wiring would slide up too, removed the key cylinder, then the tilt spring assembly retainer and spring (under pressure) and some other misc. stuff. I couldn't remove the pivot cause it looked like it needed a special tool. At this point I could see at least 2 or 3 of the 3-4 torx screws. I was able to tighten these up because they were loose. These screws require a female torx socket because the head of the bolt is a male torx. Unlike many of the torx fasteneners on the car which utilize a male torx screwdriver or socket, these bolts require female sockets to tighten them. I have an '86 column that is out of the car that is loose. I've been wanting to tighten it up so I could sell it. I may have to do it soon otherwise it'll just sit around. I could take some pics of the process. It's harder to work on the column when it's out of the car cause it moves around. This may or may not be the problem so proceed at your own risk. Make sure you lay out the parts as you remove them. The part called the rack which is the actuator for the dimmer switch is tricky to reinstall, take a close look how it was removed. Pictures help a lot during disassembly. The steps are detailed quite well in the Helms manual. I haven't checked the Haynes but it might show some of the stuff. Sometimes Haynes recommends a professional on some parts of the car, this may be one of them. If you're handy with tools it's an interesting project. Good Luck.
Art

 

Thanks for all the help Art. This will be on the list of many projects I'm doing this winter. I have a digital camera and will be taking pics as I go along to assist in reassembly. The memory is not as good as it used to be so pics really help.

 

Someone just posted this link on another thread concerning their loose column. It's pretty good as far as getting into the column. The telescoping part is missing but it's pretty detailed. I didn't have to go all the way down before I could tighten 3 of the 4 screws. Hope this helps.

http://home.t-online.de/home/O_Scholz/steering.html

Art

 

I have done some by only tightening 3 of the 4 screws and it has lasted 8 years so far and I still drive the truck today with no problems. I was the one who just posted that in the general forum but I am not responsible for the original finding of the site it comes from... that applause needs to go to "fsr402".

 

That link is a keeper. Thanks Justardnck

 

Thanks for the props but I can't take credit for that. Someone else posted it for me when I needed some help on that a month or so ago. (Sorry I can't remember who it was, but I'll look into it so that he will get the applause)