[Ratpin]

I'm working on the '59 apache with my dad. We pulled the steering wheel off recently to realize that at some point a previous owner had gone to town on the top of the steering column with a hammer. The threaded part that the steering wheel bolts on has been damaged (slightly mushroomed and bent a little causing the nut to not thread properly). This is frustrating because we just got all the newly refinished front sheet metal back on the truck.

Is there anyway we can repair or replace this without having to drop the whole column and box? I've read that doing that, it will be necessary to remove the inner fender and a lot of the stuff we just installed. Has anyone dealt with a similar problem to their steering column? What would you guys do?