Tonights' new issue............

SQUEAK!!! I have this f'ing squeak in my column. Happens at I-state speed because I have a slight shimmy. The damn column is driving me crazy!. I've had the wheel off and the noise appears to be coming from the part right infront of the wheel. I tried to WD-40 the stinkin' thing but no difference.

Anybody have this thing happening?

ID89GT said:

Get your tires balanced, no more shimmy, no more squeek

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The tires were balanced when they were installed. There is only 1000 mi. since then. The shimmy is slight, and I can duplicate the squeak by moving the wheel slightly back and forth rapidly. Even if I could eliminate the shimmy completely, I still want that damn squeak gone for real. I had the wheel off when I put the gauges in to address this very issue. The steering shaft goes into an aluminum bulkhead right behind the wheel mounting adapter, and there is a bearing that wont let me get at lubricating the shaft where I think the squeak is coming from. I'm thinking I'm gonna drill an 1/8th" hole in that bulkhead so I can stick the WD40 nozzle into it .

ID89GT said:

You cant get to it after taking off the column trim?

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Nope, the noise seems to be inside the aluminum area surrounding the steering shaft

There are three spring loaded " contacts" that the horn signal comes from that might be making the noise, but I've greased and wd 40'd the he'll out of them, and it still squeaks

To tell the truth, I don't know why I am even posting this update with the 1 whole reply it got.

I'd thought that there'd be a whole bunch of us w/ similar column issues but evidently every bodies columns are perfect.

Mine on the other hand was not. After looking at it, and doing some internet searches, it appeared that NOBODY had a solution to this problem, .........ever.
I posted a similar thread in tech, but got the same outcome, so, for anybody left that gives a rats' ass, this is what I did to fix it.

I decided to separate the column at the pivot point. Cannot be done in the car, the damn pivot point is hardened. Trying to drill it by hand would be futile, and the angle would be impossible to keep even remotely perpendicular.

I removed the column an drilled the pivot points out by progressively increasing the bit size (and killing the bit each time consecutively). The two pieces finally separated at slightly under 3/8".

There are two bearings in that head, easily removed by tapping. I looked at them, and other than a wash and re-lube, couldn't determine that my squeak was coming from there. I removed the shaft, and could see no area that looked dry, or worn. But I cleaned and re-lubed that as well. The bolts behind the multifunction switch were loose, so I removed them and loctited them as detailed in other threads. To tell the truth, I now had a column in two pieces, and drilled beyond reassembly, and couldn't tell you that I did ANYTHING to fix my damn squeak. Now I was faced w/ the reality that there was no way to put the two pieces back together w/o somehow "bolting" them back together.

So I drilled and tapped the pivoting part of the head 3/8-24. Then drilled the pivot part out to 3/8".

I installed two 3/8-24 studs in the holes and ran two locking nuts down to hold the two pieces together ala FRANKENSTEIN.



Embarrased to say that this pic is supposed to show the threads I tapped into the pivoting head.



And this of course would be the pivot portion.

The next blurry pic is of the two pieces married, and nutted together:



What happens when you do all this you ask ( all one of you). The column gets factory tight. It still pivots, yet it no longer wobbles. The left-right play in the steering was dramatically minimized. Most importantly and for whatever reason as a by product my diabolical column-ectaty,......
The stinking squeak is GONE.

Now I cannot recommend this solution to anybody else, because it takes the requisite drill press, and makes it really hard to get the column trim back on. but in my case, it fixed my problem. And there was always that "what if I "f" it up so bad I can't fix it?" thingy to consider....

AS a footnote while I had it off, and since I was butchering things, I decided to "shallow up" the dish in my retro steering wheel. The wheel was really too deep for me, and it made me feel like I was sitting too close to it. I looked for a custom aftermarket piece, but they were all too "blingy" for me. So that said, I decided to "customize" it myself.



OLD WHEEL



NEW, IMPROVED "LOVE IT OR HATE IT" WHEEL



OLD,.....



NEW.

I cut 1.5" inches out of the dish, and welded it back together. Painted it gloss black and added red pinstripes to match the interior color.

I don't know if I like it enough to keep it, but for now I can stop feeling like I'm about a foot away from the wheel.

JEEPSTANG59 said:

Thanks for the heads up. Love the Pony style interior, really like the woodgrain dash. Kind of new here but did you do a right up on the interior?

Looks good and thanks,

Paul

By the way mine does not have that squeek but it does have one in the dash. Read somewhere that it may be between the column and dash....

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THANKS! The interior is detailed on my build thread. After taking the whole column apart, I believe that those two bolts under the multi-function switch (i.e. turnsignal switch) are probably loose on 90% of the cars out there. I'm sure they contributed to my mysterious squeak. I hope that that was not my problem and I "overcompensated" for the squeak by tearing apart my column. The problem was always linked to those stupid two loose ass bolts.

90stang5speed said:

couldnt comment on the squeek as I didnt have a clue how to fix it but, the "custom" wheel looks awesome Mike.

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Thanks man. You always have a positive comment. Really appreciate the input.

Coupester said:

Mike, did you replace the bearing in the pivot point, or do you know how? My squeek doesn't bother me as much as the wobbly wheel --- which is not coming from the [2] 13mm bolts like everyone says. You can also email me at cfrance@gmail.com

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There is no bearing in the tilt head pivot pin. It's just a steel dowel that goes through the outer aluminum "shell". There's a hardened steel insert that looks like its threaded that I drilled out. Once that was drilled out the two pieces separated. once apart, I could slide the shaft out of the pivot head, and there were two bearings in the pivot head. I did clean, and grease them, but could not see why the damn things were contributing to the problem. Again, separating the two pieces left me w/ the tedious procedure of drilling and tapping the main part attached to the steering shaft so that I could put new studs and nuts to put it back together. ( real pain in the ass). It did completely stop the shimmy in the wheel, the wobble, and the squeak, Still could not tell you what I did to stop it though. The only reason I can think of is because there is now preload on the column head from those Frankenstein stud-and-nuts that are now hanging out of my column,

Other than the column now has franken-studs hanging out of it, It's fixed. I guess I am not the only one w/ this problem.

But thanks for the credit, Friend. Good to not be Alone. Bad! That it's not an easy fix.