I had to replace my tilt column with a column out of a 87 camaro..everything matched perfectly except my car has cruise and the donor column did not. My problem is when I installed the new column, it came up 1" shorter than my original, so now I cannot connect it to the steering linkage under hood. I cannot figure out why this is since I measured both columns and the installion went fine. The only point I have to start with is that I did not remove the steering wheel on the donor column because it was a grant. Could that be why it will not couple up, because I did not remove the steering wheel? The donor car was a v-6 vs. my v-8 but other than that the columns were a match...any help will be greatly appreciated!!

 

Okay solved this problem. First, the donor column was short by 1.5", I had already removed the steering wheel lock plate on my original column which allow the column to decompress, causing it to measure close to the donor, so what I had to do was go back to the donor car and get the lower steering linkage rod and install it on my car. My original steering linkgade rod was 17.5" and the donor car linkage was 19.5"..The original column was 31" and the donor was 29.5"..and I found out real quick the easiest way to connect the upper and lower steering linkage rods is to make a reference mark on the lower linkage and remove the 11 mm bolt on it and slide the lower linkage rod off of the spine on the steering box. This will let you move the lower linkage in any direction and wiggle it enough to get it to slide onto the upper linkage coupling. This is much easier than try that ol' "push the column real hard" thing. When you have the upper and lower linkages connected, you just have to apply steady pressure and pull the lower linkage back down on it's spine and tighten the nut. I tried the "push the column" thing for 30 minutes straight with no luck and then disconnected the lower linkage and had the whole thing finished in 10... word of advice....all columns on 3rg gen f bodies are NOT interchangable without including the lower steering linkage in the process!