I recently purchased a '91 Firebird and the tilt wheel has the standard tilt wheel wobble. I want to try and get it inspected this weekend or early next week and I have been looking at getting a replacement column. For the money that most are asking, I am not sure I want to buy a 20+ year old column only to go through this issue again in a year or three. So, can a non-tilt column be swapped in place of a tilt column? I know I need to keep VATS or eliminate it through the computer (this will happen when I do my LS swap over the winter), so can I just keep my VATS box and key and swap them over to the new non-tilt column (not sure what would be involved in this)? Are there any non-tilt columns that are easier to swap than others?

I just took ownership of the car after being away from F-bodies for more than 12 years and haven't had a chance to look at the column much since I got it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Ken

 

Why not just fix the wheel wobble? I had to fix mine when the wheel started to get loose. There is a complete thread on it and, once you have a steering wheel puller, shouldn't take more than 2-3 hours start to finish to get tightened back up.

 

The few threads I read through for fixing the column on a 91 or 92 alluded to the wobble being caused by a pin egging out a hole. I found a steering column in better shape than mine, so I picked it up and will swap that in this weekend. I will take apart the original one to see if it can't be fixed up as a spare or to resell cheaply.

 

Pics, parts and info on steering columns:
http://www.steeringcolumnservices.com/