[slotard]

I believe the cylinder actuates a rod (push or pull, depending on the year) that goes to the electronics which are mounted farther down the column (to make it harder to hotwire).

If you have a decent junkyard around I'd suggest grabbing a tilt column, mine wasn't too hard to swap the cylinder in (no key at the junkyard) and install into my truck, and tilt is nice to have. Probably cheaper than having someone fix what's there now, I paid $50ish for the column (complete with wheel and shaft), $10 for the cylinder with keys from an auto parts store. Took me a few hours total (once I realized I needed to replace the column, I spent far too long trying to get the old one working).