play in steering column

[meanmachine]

Hi - new to post but reading the forum for quite a while:

got a question about my new 84 GTV6....

my steering wheel has a weird play: I can move it up/down/left/right several millimeters - it feels pretty lose - to be more exact, not the steering wheel feels lose but the steering column. The wheel is solidly attached to the column but when I grab the wheel my entire steering column moves inside its steering column tunnel. So, it's not the adjuster for adjusting the wheel height - I can tighten that up. It's loose inside its column. It almost feels like the bearing on top ( I assume there is one - where the column exits from the tunnel - right under the big steering wheel nut) is missing????

It's not longitudinal play. I searched the BB and found the thread on the rubber coupling problem with Alfetta and GTV6s but i am not sure if this is my problem. This is the thread I am referring to

Steering Column question

sorry for my longwinded explanation - hope to get some help

thx

[meanmachine]

anybody ????

am I the only one with this problem???

[GVVGTV6]

Sounds strange, and not the rubber coupling thing - the give away for that one is that one day you can drive with the car going straight and the steering wheel centered and the next day after a bit of parallel parking the steeering wheel will be at the 1 o'clock or 11 o'clock position even thought the car is going straight.

Take the steering column shroud off - the screws are on the bottom side and take a look - you'll have to do one of those put your head where the peddles are while you're upside down moves.

GV

[sidewaysalfa]

Here's my idea. From my Alfetta GT, I think the GTV6 has the same assembly.
There is a bushing that the steering column passes thru. It is between the column and the steering tube/tunnel. The bushing is a metal ring with some rubber type stuff around it. The column passes thru the ring and the rubber stuff isolates the column from the tube I guess.
The steering column comes off with a little work, pull the steering wheel first then just unbolt/unplug everything else.
I hope this photo shows the bushing that I "rebuilt" by adding some rubber around the metal ring.

[meanmachine]

thanks a lot for your responses and Paul - thanks for the great picture

I think that's exactly my problem.

I'll take the wheel and everything else off on the weekend and see how it looks on a GTV6

I'll report back

[sidewaysalfa]

Dear Mean (if I can be so informal),
When you get the steering wheel off you can easily see if that bushing is the problem.
A helpful hint about working on the U-joint at the base of the steering column:
There are bolts clamping the U-joint to the column and also to the steering rack. The bolts pass across a flat in the splines of the shaft and rack so REMOVE the bolts completely otherwise the shaft will not pull out of the joint. I also have spread the clamped part of the joint apart and shoot some PB Blaster to help break them appart.
My bushing construction was not the best. I'm not that tallented in getting rubber/plastic to bond to the metal sleeve. But I managed to get something to hold together as I reassembeled the shaft and bushing back into the steering tube.
Good luck.