Steering Column Tear-down

Decided to blow the steering column apart since I needed to get the floor mounting plate off and trace for a seal. It was fairly straightforward and actually a little simpler than the one in my Duster. 'Course, someone's been inside already and messed up the steering wheel and horn mechanism.



So what's it take to disassemble one? Not much. After removing the horn pad (which was taped on and missing parts under the pad) I simply removed the wheel nut and used a puller to remove the wheel. One screw and the turn signal lever is out. Remove a snap ring and the main shaft slides out. 3 screws and the switch comes out along with some springs and other miscellaneous parts. Drive the pin out that holds the shift lever in place. There is a set screw that secures the shift tube to the upper assembly. Once all this is off the only thing preventing the shift tube from coming out is the little shift indicator bracket.

The bracket is secured to the tube with two nylon rivets. I presume they used nylon so that in the event of a massive crash it would shear off just as the steering shaft, shift tube, and column housing are designed to collapse - rather than impale you.





I took a punch and pushed the little pins through and the bracket popped off. The nice thing is they should be reuseable.

Reuseable nylon rivet hold the shift pointer bracket to the shift tube. Once the bracket is off the tube will slide out.