Steering column failure?

[Lucky]

Right, it's like this. Today a mate went to move the FB for me and as he got in he leant (quite heavily, he's quite large) on the steering wheel to lever himself in. The entire column came out (straight, not bent) away from the clocks by about four inches. You can slide it back and forth. It's stiff, but it can be done with a good pull or push. When it's pulled out as far as possible it no longer seems to actually engage the steering (you can turn the steering wheel and the wheels don't move). Which is clearly quite worrying were it to happen at speed

What's broken and how do I fix it?

The only thing I can think off that might have caused this is I gave it a few whacks with a mallet trying to get the steering wheel off last month. It didn't seem to budge so I got a three-leg puller and got the wheel off like that. Have the mallet blows almost-completely broken something and Adam yanking on it was enough to finally have it give way? But what actually broke? Just to clarify, this is not the wheel moving on the splines, it's all still bolted up tight. It seems to be the entire column sliding up and down within its tube

[ian65]

I'm sorry to say you've got a real problem here Nik....
the steering column is designed to collapse during a front end collision to protect the driver and the 2 parts of the shaft are linked together with plastic shear pins that give way in an impact..... it's a bit late now but the column should never be hit with a hammer to remove the wheel as these pins don't take much force to break them.
This is a picture of how the 2 halves fit together ( off another car) one bit slots inside the other and the pins hold the 2 parts together...



The best advice is to remove the steering column / box from the car and replace the entire thing with a known good second hand one ( from a series 2 if poss as they are easier to adjust and don't go out of adjustment so readily in the first place)

You could remove yours from the car and try to repair it but how confident would you be of the repair? You don't want it to fail and you end up doing a Senna.... on the other hand, what if, god forbid, you have a heavy front end crash and the column doesn't collapse because you've used something too strong...... you don't want to take chances with your safety....... get yourself a good second hand column and be done with it.
Damon had the same problem and did a diy repair on his.....

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1184

hopefully he'll never have to put it to the test........ factories use crash test dummies for a reason...... play safe mate, change the column/steering box.

[Lucky]

So you have to replace the entire steering box as well as the column? That's irritating

[ian65]

unless you bodge it and run the risk of driving around with a non-collapsible steering column..... even then, you need to strip off most of the column fixtures, cabin side of the bulkhead including the snap bolts that hold the ignition barrel on...... it's a pain of a job and you might just as well swap the whole thing and do it right.
Being a basic 70's design, the only safety features you've got are the crumple zone in the shell, the collapsible steering column and your seat belts...... no airbags, pre-tensioners or impact bars so the steering column working right is a must IMO

[Lucky]

Incredibly irritating.

OK, thanks for the prompt and comprehensive answer anyway, Ian.