[Jack Houpe]

I've read the threads and post from Tom and Richard on this subject and this is a have to fix before next trip. I had a tremendous amount of play in my steering wheel so bad I had to pull over every 100 miles or so to put bio freeze on my neck and lay down for a few minutes to calm my nerves. Yesterday evening I removed the column and found its not the first time its been out one of the 4 column mounting bolts was snapped off in the column and I could reach down and move the shaft by hand so the bearings are shot, I  put it in the vise you could see the was slop coming from the top and bottom. I called a place in NY and 2-3 weeks out and not one on the shelf to swap out, so I ordered a 28" keyed tilt generic GM column that I will have to tig weld some nuts on to for mounting and either change out the U joint to a DD type fitting or tig weld the spline onto the end of it.  it. I called Morgan at Newell and he said he didn't think they had any rebuilds in stock and still waiting on his reply. 

One question for the gurus on this, how did you remove that intermediate shaft from the steering box? Do you have to remove the gauges? Seems to long to pull straight up, I'd like to check that rubber dampener.