Questionis their any kind of bushing or bearing in the cloumn that can be replaced to take the wobble out of my steering their also some poping and cracking when i turn the wheel?
Answer
Ford Column Housing
Hi Danny:
It sounds like the bearings in the upper tilt housing are beginning to fall apart. This is actually fairly common. The column will begin to get loose (upper end only) and can be fixed fairly inexpensively if it isn't loose for too long. There are actually 2 bearings that go bad in the aluminum tilt housing inside the plastic cover. The upper bearing is small (about 1" in diameter) and the lower one is larger (about 3" in diameter). Together these bearings will cost about $25.00 (we sell them on our website at http://www.stolenandrecovered.com). You can't see the lower on until you remove the tilt housing.
The airbag (if equipped), the steering wheel, both covers, the clockspring, the turn signal switch, the lock cylinder, the actuator gears inside the lock housing, the tilt housing spring, the pivot pins and then the tilt housing (cancel plastic, snap ring, spring and upper bearings retainers) all have to come apart to access these bearings.
To remove the housing, you will need to remove the large spring on the lower right side of the housing (be careful-it's a strong spring), then the gears inside the lock cylinder housing (where the lock comes out), and lastly the 2 pivot pins on each side of the housing (the pins that allow the tilt housing to pivot).
as always, getting it apart is the easy part. Putting these parts back together correctly and safely is the hard part. Putting the spring back in will give you a lot of trouble. Aligning the gears for the ignition lock ABSOLUTELY have to go in 1 way or you will never get the lock to hit all the positions and you won't be able to get it out again.
Lastly, the snap ring has to be pressed onto the shaft after everything is seated properly.
I hope I've helped you. If you think it's too big a job, you can contact my company directly a stolenandrecovered.com & we can rebuild it for you and ship it back.
