1941 Steering Column Shaft Removal

[petehoovie]

Originally Posted by J.D.G.

Heat and ice for the win. Originally fought it for an hour… took 10 minutes the second time with heat and ice water.

Thanks everyone for your help!

My takeaways are:
- sounds like maybe there was a Mercury shaft that was installed which was longer than the Ford shaft I needed.
- my nos steering column was for right hand drive applications

[petehoovie]

Originally Posted by J.D.G.

Okay, I got everything torn apart and the worm gears are different. I have the correct worm gear within a 1/4 inch of being all the way on the correct shaft and it won’t budge any further. Going to press it back off and heat it up while giving the shaft an ice bath and try again.

[J.D.G.]

I am now paranoid that my shifter components are rhd too. Are they even different? If so, how can I tell? Looks like the key is located on the right side for both setups.

Judging by the grease zerk in the picture I have more issues to sort out.

[J.D.G.]

Digging through my boxes of parts that came with the car looking for my shifter arm I came across a set of nos gear selector arms so the previous owner must have know about the rhd column.

I have everything torn apart but the socket for the shifter arm does not line up with the opening and there is some corrosion in there. The diagram shows that should come out of the top of the tube with a spring below it, correct? I filled the opening with PB Blaster and am letting it soak, any other suggestions other than hitting it with some heat?

Everything other than the 2nd/high gear lever looks the same.

[petehoovie]

Originally Posted by J.D.G.

Digging through my boxes of parts that came with the car looking for my shifter arm I came across a set of nos gear selector arms so the previous owner must have know about the rhd column.

I have everything torn apart but the socket for the shifter arm does not line up with the opening and there is some corrosion in there. The diagram shows that should come out of the top of the tube with a spring below it, correct? I filled the opening with PB Blaster and am letting it soak, any other suggestions other than hitting it with some heat?

Everything other than the 2nd/high gear lever looks the same.

[glennpm]

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Give the PB Blaster time to work today, Give it a few more shots. I've also had luck with propane heat, remove from part and chill it with PB Blaster.

Glenn

[J.D.G.]

Everything is freed up, greased, and reinstalled. Installed the linkages and it runs through all the gears. Learned a lot on this supposed to have been quick steering column tube install.

Thanks again.

[glennpm]

I think when you determine a new hole in the shift rod, you'll be pretty close to the existing hole. This would make the rod pretty weak. You may have to cut below the existing hole and then re-weld it to the "new hole" location you have figured out.

Glenn

[J.D.G.]

I jumped the gun on that assumption. The pin lines up vertically so swapping it to the other side had zero effect. Just needed to adjust the shifter linkages. Was overthinking it without everything hooked up.

[glennpm]

That’s the best “repair”!