Steering shaft issues

[nicholasmansfield]

Hey all,

I have a 69 c10 with a three on the tree. I pulled the steering wheel off to swap steering wheels for a better condition one. While I was doing that I broke a small tab off of my turn signal Switch assembly so I replaced that. The center steering shaft slid down in the tube but I can’t get it pulled up enough to even start the splines in the wheel shaft now.

From under the hood I tried pushing the steering shaft up, but it still comes up at least an inch short with the spring compressed all the way. Any advice? I’m stumped.

[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.

[nicholasmansfield]

Another picture I have

[HO455]

You could having several issues contributing to your problem. Your rag joint may be completely worn out. The sliding joint that dmjlambert discusses, and the rubber in the isolation joint (circled in photo below) may have have failed. Or a combination of some or all of the above.

The second photo I harvested from the site as a comparison of how far the shaft should be sticking out.

The third photo is how I pushed my column up. My 67 doesn’t have the isolation joint. But doing it how I did it won't help with a collapsed rag joint.

Can you post a photo of the rag joint?

Notice the differences in how compressed your spring below the shift mechanism is?
You may have to wiggle the spring clamp around while pushing the shaft back up the column to recenter the lower bearing in the column.

Good luck and post your results.

[nicholasmansfield]

Here is some more pictures.

[HO455]

Having stared at your photos it looks like part of the problem is what looks like the upper column piece isn't seated properly. See the gap in yours compared to the photo I posted (See arrows).