how does the column come out of my 53 chevy belair? the threads are stripped so i cant bolt my steering wheel on.....lol...but was looking at it and dont see how it comes apart? do i have to remove the whole steering box and everything?
The box and column are a one piece ***embly and have to be removed that way. once out, you can either dis***emble the unit and replace the shaft, or just replace the whole thing.
does anyone know the size and thread pitch for the steering wheel nut? Maybe i could run a die over and clean the threads up?
good luck on the repair. the column ***y must be removed as a unit from the bottom. so you will need to get the car high enough for it to clear.
well gonna try and run a die over and see what that brings. If not i got my parts car which the steering wheel originally came off of but would rather not have to swap columns. Thanks for all of the help guys. This forum has got to be the best help i've ever gotten. Being a young 21 year old mechanic i havent seen much of the old stuff. Thanks again!
if you don' thave the shop manual for your car, you can find it at tocmp.org might be worth reading thru it....
If you plan on updating the column but keeping the 53 steer box, you can do what I did with my 50 delivery. I cut the entire column and shaft about 10 inches up from the steering box. Took the old column and tossed it. I removed the stub of steering column from the 53 steering box...it's just pressed in lightly. That leaves 10 inches of 3/4 inch shaft sticking out of the box...I took measurements and bought a seal to slide down the shaft and into the box, keeping dirt/water,etc outta the box. I used wet rags to protect my new seal and welded a GM rag joint connector onto the shaft, taking care not to melt the new seal. I grabbed an old mid-late 70s chevy van non-tilt column and shortened it up to be comfortable for my seating arrangements with a cool dished wheel on it. Those old chevies always had the damn steering wheel right up in yer face...I always hated that. I was able to re-use the original 50's chevy column drop after a little whittling with my die grinder...the van column is about 1/4 inch fatter. I used a new rag joint and in an afternoon....viola! I had an old, appearing column with modern turn signals, 4 way flashers and the rag joint really helps with vibrations on long trips. Best part was, I was able to cut the column to a proper length to get that wheel outta my face...
I've found that sometimes a die can do a bit too much cutting on a messed up thread. Hard to get started if the first thread is distorted. I think a good investment, if you work on your cars a lot, is a thread restoring file. Not very expensive, but works great! They come with 8 different threads on one file. They have gotten me out of a bad spot many times!
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