FAQ: Steering Column Slop, Problems & Replacement

great post! going to do the fix soon!

Here's mine. Pretty sure I'm just gonna have to replace the entire column. Now to find one that isn't insanely expensive...

looks like both of the pins fell out of yours.

FWIW, i had mine apart the other week and tried something new.

I smeared a very thin layer of JB weld on the inside slot (where the wear is) and took a toothpick to make sure it was spread even all the way around and just a little thicker where it had the most wear. Let it dry almost all the way and then put the pin in. It was a tight fit and took a little bit of tapping but it is now 90% fixed. still slight movement in the 2:00/8:00 direction and i still need to do the opposite side, but it seems to be working well.
Tilt still works as i greased the pina little and made sure the JB was too dry to really stick to the pin. Not sure how long it will last but i dont use my tilt except when taking the dash off.

Matthew

Yeah, those pins are long gone I'm sure. I'll probably have the column cover off tomorrow. I suspect that the brackets are broke anyway.

Hi all. I had my column break the other morning. Its a 95 Rivi with 15k miles on it. Pretty much a new car. Well the pin in the tilt mech fell out of the right side and from use I guess probably a short time of use, the left side cracked from fatigue and the wheel was pretty much in my lap. I was half way down my driveway, stuck in reverse and had to go do a reverse u turn in the road and back the car into my garage so I could take it apart. I'll add pics of the mess. The column had to come out. I took it to a friends who has a Tig welder and he welded it up for me, since its cast I let him do it as he is more experienced with welding AL. I also had him weld a tab for reinforcement to the part. And last I had tabs welded over both pins so they cannot come out again. What a night. 8 hours later I had it back together and perfect. Probably better than original too.

Lets see if the pics show up.

that is an odd failure, and an awesome fix!
Surprising issue with such a low mileage car.
Hope it's smooth sailing from here!
Jbird

Dang bro......we'll figure something out don't worry.

How do you insert pics? I've tired hosting which downloads it to create a url.

My other question is what will happen if I continue to drive...other than lots of 3 point turns??? Will the wheel fall off?

Same exact problem. My 1995 riviera has 70,000 so its much higher but it is the same piece that broke;also due to the tilt pin on the right popping out. Should I buy a new column since I have no access to someone with those skills or would you recommend finding someone to fab it like you did?

premature jack wrote:

Same exact problem. My 1995 riviera has 70,000 so its much higher but it is the same piece that broke;also due to the tilt pin on the right popping out. Should I buy a new column since I have no access to someone with those skills or would you recommend finding someone to fab it like you did?

A new column would probably be more expensive than having somebody do a couple welds. If you could get the whole piece out and know somebody that goes to a shop class in HS/college they could probably get it done for you without much issue. Otherwise a professional shop would probably charge you a half hour or an hour.

My previously tight steering seems loose now but I can't tell if its just because the column goes every which direction

my steering wheel has been rocking back and forth for a few months now. I pulled everything apart yesterday. Sure enough, the right side pin had popped out about 1/2". I pushed the pin back in and everything felt nice and tight. Left side pin was fine. I noticed an unused hole that I ran a tap into threading the hole. Used a screw (with thread locking compound) and a fabbed piece of metal to block the pin from coming out again. Tilt works just fine. Might be a bit unorthodox but it should work.

Looks Great and a Great Idea!!!

As many of these as I have had apart I never noticed the "extra" hole or thought of securing the pin that way!

Good job!

Nice fix, Larry!

Thanks. I was initially going to drill a small hole off to the side of the pin, tap it, and use a washer and screw to block the pin from backing out, but then I saw the unused hole and came up with that idea.

i have a extra coloum n my garage brought for the airbag only

Edward is the column tight no play do you want to sell.thanks Steve

Larry, that idea is excellent and I am totally using it. My steering column has always been ever so slightly wobbly, but not enough to bother me. Might as well get in there and fix it, and I like what you did.

going check

just checked it its not broken but they put some type of weld to keep the pin by the key switch in give me ur num i can send a pic

LARRY70GS wrote:

Thanks.  I was initially going to drill a small hole off to the side of the pin, tap it, and use a washer and screw to block the pin from backing out, but then I saw the unused hole and came up with that idea.

I have been wondering what happened after people pop the right-hand pin back in after it falls out the first time and wondered if it fell out again in six weeks. You're the first one, Larry, that posted something to prevent that - good job!

I had almost the same thought process that Larry did it seems, threaded the same existing hole, but fab'd my pin retainer a little differently than he did:  It's just another idea for consideration.

I made a retainer from standard car body steel sheet (0.032" ?), a hacksaw, a vise and hammer, a file, a couple taps and some "Black Magic" chemical phosphating agent:



I measured the existing tooling hole in the aluminum frame and found that it is a perfect starting hole size for a 1/4-28 National Fine (NF) tap.The existing 8-32 threaded hole in the pin, I tapped in the retainer to match the thread in the pin and secured the pin to the retainer with a machine screw and lock washer as shown. There is a clearance hole in the retainer for the 1/4-28 NF machine screw.  The clearance of that hole means the 0.91" center-to-center distance I measured between each hole is "close enough".

This approach has two advantages in my view:

1.  There is no reliance upon friction or the lock washers to hold the retainer and prevent its rotation.
2.  The pin's attachment to the sheet metal retainer via the 8-32 machine screw actually provides a longer moment-arm to prevent rocking of the pin which caused the wear in the first place.  I believe it makes up for some of the wear in the pin-bore and tightens up any existing rocking a little bit.  At least it seemed that way to me.

Alas, I don't have access to a machine shop to fab some custom pins.

I was a little concerned about clearance to the column cover, but there was no problem with that.
Here's what my pin-retainer install looks like:

Looks good, very professional!!!

No clearance issues with the column covers? It has been a while since I had one apart. It looks great!

Very nice. As long as you can keep the pin in place, the steering wheel stays reasonably tight. Had to have the roof of my car resprayed because of some defective clear coat that had started to peel. The body shop owner asked me what was up with my steering column. That was all I needed to rip into it and fix it for good. Good job.

I'm in the process of taking the bracket off an Aurora right now to replace ours in our 95 Riv and once I got back to the bracket, the shaft asm, lower strg (number 38) has to be removed to pull the bracket off.  How does this come out?

I see in the pics that it has a retainer clip on the far end but how do I get to that if that is what I need to get to?