1969 Valiant steering housing loose

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Robj

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'69 Valiant 318 manual 4sp with floor shifter. No ignition switch or shifter on the column

I've been helping a buddy with some wiring on his Valiant. It's had some really shoddy things done by a previous owner.

Both sections of the steering collar housings (for lack of correct terminology) are loose. The one directly behind the steering wheel which houses the signal switch and the rear one which seems to be trim. The two bearing housing nuts were lose. One will tighten the other will not. The stud coming through on the one that will not tighten protrudes further than the other. I've never gotten into one of these columns this far and can't find any diagrams or images of what those studs look like on the backside. I was reading in one magazine online that they're wedges?

Even with the nuts loose and the housings being able to rock on the protruding steering shaft, the top one does not move up and down on the shaft as though it can be pulled off and removed. In the bottom photo you can see the nut and stud on the left hanging lose. I'm not sure but the stud may be stripped at the point it should be tightening. The nut spins but the stud seems firm and not spinning with it.

I downloaded a factory manual from MyMopar but all examples in there are for manual and automatic column shift cars. There's also no illustrations of the two sections removed or taken apart. Can this section of the column be taken apart and serviced with the column in the vehicle. Any help on this would be appreciated.

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I’ve been out of town for a week and a half. I’m going to take a look at this again. Can anybody tell me how to disassemble one of these so I can try to find out where the problem is? The factory manual is not detailed this. Thanks
 
You will probably need to pull the column assembly out of the car.

Lets work a little backwards first.
The heads of those two bolts are square, the edge of one side of the head of the bolt hooks the column housing tube like a j-bolt.
I'm not sure it is something that can be done in the car (it was tricky with the column standing up).


Alan
 
I was wondering how it all secured to the column. I can’t find any photos anywhere. J-hook that explains why it’s loose.
 
I found a diagram I’d missed before in the manual that helped a little to show me what the innards looked like and how they are attached.

The real issue though was that whoever was in there before buggered it all up. I got the bearing housing off the column. They must have lost most of the bolts and screws. The turn signal switch had three different non-matching screws and the housing is supposed to be fastened to the column with two special square headed bolts that lock into slots in the column. As you tighten them, they slide up a ramp and into the slots on the column. One of them was replaced with a regular hex head bolt. It looks like it's been on both sides in the past because both of the channels for the square heads are all mucked up. The hex head doesn’t slide like it’s supposed to. The shaft isn’t centered in the tube either. There’s a lot of downward pressure on it.

It looks like the two flanges coming up that the two square heads are supposed to attach to are way out of center too. (Bottom photo)

One of these jobs that never ends because of issues you keep finding. I was just doing electrical for him but I can’t turn it back over to him knowing there’s a problem in the steering column.
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The (side of the) square heads go into the square holes in the side on the tube (seen at about 10:00 and 6:00 in your picture)
The post (first picture) that has the web to the center goes in the notch hidden from view in the second picture.
The two pieces can really only go together one way, having the correct bolt will make a difference but may be tricky getting them to engage the housing with the column in the car, I had mine standing up and it was tricky.

It does appear that having the housing loose has caused damage to the square head pocket in the housing along with the hex head, a new housing is in order.


Alan
 
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The (side of the) square heads go into the square holes in the side on the tube (seen at about 10:00 and 6:00 in your picture)
The post (first picture) that has the web to the center goes in the notch hidden from view in the second picture.
The two pieces can really only go together one way, having the correct bolt will make a difference but may be tricky getting them to engage the housing with the column in the car, I had mine standing up and it was tricky.

It does appear that having the housing loose has caused damage to the square head pocket in the housing along with the hex head, a new housing is in order.
Alan

I mam going thru the same thing right now. I rebuilt the column back yrs ago and got the square headed bolts to grab and titen up. I did a lower bearing mod a while back (in the car) , and now have a problem w/ the bolts not holding. After speaking a lot of Chinese to it , I guess I`m goin to pull the whole dam thing. I cant believe an engineer couldn`t come up with something better than that rig! I`m going to investigate tack welding the bolts to the tube , TIRED OF SCREWING W/ IT !!
 
It seems an odd design to me. I was thinking the same thing... there’s a better way to design this.
 
It seems an odd design to me. I was thinking the same thing... there’s a better way to design this.

Yeah, I think it`s about the most stupid thing I`ve seen on a mopar !
 
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