My steering wheel has been upside down since I've owned my car. I just had it lined up and if they would have set the steering wheel right it would have never lined up to specs. I've noticed that there is markings on the colume that look like junk yard markings. I've been told that you can unbolt the colum from the box and flip it. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Unbolt the steering shaft from the "column", then rotate the steering wheel 180 degrees and bolt the shaft back up. The shaft may be difficult to collapse too, they usually are, and you will have to collapse it a little bit to pull it off the column to rotate it. I've replaced the steering shaft and steering box in my car so I have a general idea of what I am doing here.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Thank you my friend. Will take care of that over the weekend.

 

What? Why? Just remove the steering wheel and reinstall it in the correct position.

 

You can't do that the horn wire has to go through the hole in steering wheel and the only way it will do that is if you put it on the way it was. The wheel is off the car now. As far as the unbolting colume, do I need to drop from the dash or just steering box.

 

try removing the bolt in the shaft under the hood near the brake booster. you may be able to turn it there 180 and reinstall. I've never tried it but memory of what it looks like (double d) tells me it should flip.

 

You can't do that because the steering shaft is splined with an index mark, you can only install the wheel (or an aftermarket wheel hub) one way unless you screw something else up. That's probably the first thing I would check, if someone messed that up. After that I would check the joints in the shaft/rag joint and steering column. I suppose that someone could have messed any of those up but they're supposed to index in only one position.

Honestly, someone did something stupid to cause this, you just need to check which something stupid they did.

 

If you pull the steering wheel and take a look it will tell you what is wrong.

If the column is not installed properly and you have to pull it and spin it and I would do it like this.

Especially if it has been in there for a while.

Remove the bolt and nut from the drive shaft in the bay and spray it with some PB Blaster. Tap it with a hammer lightly to break it free. Give it a few minutes or longer for the Blaster to work.

Then you will need to remove the 3 nuts from where the column goes through the floorboard then drop the column buy removing the 2 nuts towards the top.

Carefully try to pull the column out disconnecting it from the second half in the bay.
Once its out, I sand the inside of the connection and also apply some grease.

Spin the wheel and reinstall.

Your going to need two people to do this.

I have removed and installed several columns in my "89" and the first time I did put it in improperly.
Installed a aftermarket steering wheel that can be installed this way.

The only way I knew it was wrong is because the turn signals were not working properly and the turn radius was off.

One other thing when dealing with aftermarket steering wheels.
Make sure your front tires are perfectly straight when you go to put it on.
That way everything will be lined up correctly.

If the front wheels are perfectly straight and you remove the steering wheel you should see exactly this.
If the plastic tube that holds the horn wire is not in this position then the column is not installed properly.


The turn signal assembly will be in this position.

 

One thing we don't know is if the steering wheel has an airbag. If it does that changes everything. If it doesn't then read on.

If you remove the nut from the steering wheel there will be a hash mark on both the end of the column and on the steering wheel. Can see it in the pictures Ron U.S.M.C. posted. I placed a red arrow to it on one of his pictures (see further down this post).

If the hash marks are lined up you are done there. In that case do this, as naf posted the double-d shaft can be clocked correctly or 180 out. The shaft collapses so no need to do anything with the column in the car:

RBob.