Steering column collar swap

I don't know if this is going to be of any help to you, but....

I've been helping my son Aaron swap out a floor shift column for his column shift column. The floor shift column wiring harness had some burned terminals and the bottom end of the column jacket (the outer tube) was missing the bearing support, so we figured we could simply swap all the major components over to the column shift column.

Boy, were we mistaken. Hoping to use the shift tube (has the shift lever for the column shift) as support for the lower steering shaft bearing, we could not get the two snap rings in the upper-third housing to engage their grooves in the top of the steering shaft. Those snap rings are there to sandwich in the bearing that is mounted in the upper housing. That's basically the only thing that keeps the steering shaft from falling out.

With a lot of head scratching, I finally figured out what the problem was. The bearing at the bottom of the steering shaft needed to be driven downward against the spring about 1/2". Doing that allowed the shaft to slide upward into the top housing far enough to install the locking plate, pin, retainer sleeve, snap ring, bearing, and snap ring (in that order).

I know it's kind of hard following what I am talking about, unless you have disassembled one of the columns. If necessary, I'll try to post an exploded view sketch to show how the pieces are oriented to one another.

Jerry