I've had an electrical short I haven't been able to track down until I heard it a few nights ago coming from inside the steering column. My car was rigged up where you don't even use a key to crank it, there's just a piece of metal sticking out of the ignition. What I'm wondering is can I swap a tilt steering column from a 91rs (with vats and air bag) into my non-tilt, non cpu controlled 88?

Would it be easier to just get inside the column? doesn't look like an easy job.

 

Your 1988 does not have VATS, so the VATS from the 1991 column wouldn't matter - won't even need to make a VATS key, just a plain key.

The airbag won't matter either, since there's nothing in your 1988 car to plug the bag into. You can take off the airbag steering wheel and put your non-air bag wheel on it.