[dmjlambert]

You had me curious about "tried pushing the steering shaft up, but it still comes up at least an inch short with the spring compressed". I can't figure out how you would even push the shaft up. I suppose you must have an intermediate shaft that has the plastic pin drilled or melted out at the collapsible part, is that so? I had my steering column modified to make it shorter, and it now freely collapses. When I push up on it to compress the spring and hold it in place with vice grips at the collapsing joint, I can then put the steering wheel on. Here is the intermediate shaft with hole where the plastic pin used to be.