I got my parts back from the powder coater. I took the seat frames, new foam and new seat covers to the upholstery shop. It will probably be late March or April before I get them back.
I sent in my switches to JS Restorations. Jim worked his magic and they all look great and work again. I just got done with the steering column so now it's time to turn my attention back to the dash assembly.
Here is what the steering column looked like when I started.
I soaked the outer column jacket, the lower steering shaft and inner tube in acid to clean them up. I'm converting the car to manual steering so I separated the inner and outer steering shafts and replace the lower one with a longer manual piece.
I used a $12 insert bearing on the bottom of the column instead of the $85 stock style bearing. I needed to grind 3/16" off the bottom of the inner tube and use the plastic housing from the original bearing to make it work. It took awhile to figure it out but it's going to be an improvement for sure.
This is what it looks like with the plastic housing now acting as a bushing for the inner tube. The actual bearing parts were removed from the original bearing and the locating tab was ground off so it would slide into the column farther.(it was also installed upside down) The plastic supports the bottom of the inner shaft......there is a step in the plastic for the spring to sit on.......and the spring puts upward pressure on the inner shaft to keep it from rattling around.
The turn signal switch was reused but the wiring connector was replaced. The mounting brackets were heavily pitted so they were sprayed with high build primer and sanded before being sprayed with gloss black. The upper column pieces as well as the column jacket were sprayed with Rustoleum fine texture. I installed a new coupler kit and painted the shaft gloss black.
