My car is a 94Z28 almost 200k miles and I'm having a problem with sloppy steering. I've delt with some steering issues before, last was the rack, I've also done tie-rod ends and the rag-joint within 50k miles. I'm leaning towards something in the column itself this time. When I turn the wheel back and forth theres quite a bit of slop and I can hear a squeeking, sounds like its coming from under the dash. When I got underneath to try and hunt the sound I noticed that the column gives a little bit if you pull down towards the floor, like the tilt doesn't hold tight. A different problem (I think?) is the highbeams switch doesn't work anymore.

So is there anything I can tighten up or maybe a bushing/joint in there I can raplace? What kind of mess am I looking at to tear into the column and check it out? I have the haynes manual but there is not much in there about the column itself, aside from removing the wheel and airbag.

 

My car had exactly the same downward play in the tilt mechanism when I bought it. The problem was that one of the tilt pivot pins had worked itself loose and some of the bolts deep within the column had also loosened up. To fix it I removed it from the car and completely tore it down. It required a steering wheel puller and a lockplate compressor at a minimum. The pivot pins also require a special tool to remove, but in my case one was loose and the other came out by threading a machine screw deep into it and pulling on the screw with a slide hammer. Then I was able to get to the 4 screws that hold the tilt mechanism to the base of the column.

It was not fun, I would not recommend the average guy try this on his own. I'm a very good wrench and it took me quite some time to get it all back together again. It's a 3-D jigsaw puzzle.


And BTW, your high beam switch doesn't work any more because of the play. The looseness in the joint is allowing the spring to push the upper column into the wrong position, and as a result the rod that connects the highbeam lever to the switch does not have the proper geometry to work anymore. Trust me... been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

 

http://buickperformance.com/tiltstee...lumnwobble.htm

I just found this link... It is from an older GM column than ours, but it is really not all that different once you get into the guts of it.

 

http://www.epiccomputer.com/dale/jee...tilt/tilt.html

Here is another one that shows the saginaw coolumn's guts pretty good. Once again, it's an older model but once you get past the airbag coil, it's all pretty close to the same. I like how he made a pivot pin puller out of a screw, nut, washer and a socket.

 

Thanks a ton!!! Guess it's time to go play with a puzzle.