Can't get steering shaft to collapse?

[boxcar73]

Hi all,

I am replacing my steering gear and cannot get my steering shaft to slide up. I have removed the bolt of the splines near the rag joint and am using a pry bar. It moves up a but the shaft is not budging. I have sprayed pb blaster all over the shaft. Do I need to heat this guy up? It feels if I push any harder I will damage the part that goes into the firewall.

Many thanks,

72 blazer 4X4

[Oldtruckfanatic]

Dont heat it up. Just take the column loose inside the cab and slide the whole column back if the slip is tight. Thats what I do so I dont have to beat on them sometimes.

[franken]

If I recall, there are 2 sort of plastic rod bits that shear off in an event. This allows the shaft to collapse and not kill you.

[boxcar73]

Thank to both of you. I found some time yesterday to try to complete it.

I put the new steering gear in and the rag joint on the shaft. It just does not slide up enough to connect together. I looked in the cab and firewall to loosen the shaft up top but I could not figure out what to loosen to slide it up. I do see the plastic clips on the shaft but am going to leave those alone and try to find an alternative to breaking/removing those. Any thoughts? Loosing in the cab or another trick to get the rag joint to slip over the steering gear with the shaft

Thanks in advance.