We've taken on this '85 Monte Carlo SS as our next new street car challenge. Since the steering wheel felt like it was ready to fall off in our laps, tightening it up became an instant priority.
If there is one trait that performance enthusiasts covet, it has to be interchangeability. One of the reasons GM cars are so popular with car crafters is that many of the same parts are used throughout numerous product lines that often extend over a decade. As one example, in the '80s and early '90s, GM used the same style steering column in many of its rear-wheel-drive vehicles, including trucks. While this is a good thing, the column also has as habit of becoming wobbly where the base of the tilt attaches to the rest of the column. The fix is merely tightening the bolts and adding a little thread-locking compound. While that sounds simple, getting to those bolts requires disassembling the entire top half of the column, and there is a basketful of little parts and linkages that must be maneuvered around.
Our budget '85 Monte Carlo suffers from this common malady, so we asked our resident repair expert, Tim Moore, to run through the process for us. This is definitely not recommended for first-timers, and you'd better have a factory service manual with you that has the exploded view of the column to help you return all the little parts to their rightful places. Plus, you're going to need two special tools designed to only work on these columns. The tools are not that expensive, but if you don't want to make the investment, it would be best to have a competent shop do the work for you. Because there are so many steps to this process, do not consider this story a step-by-step how-to. It will show you the major procedure. If you're feeling brave, Moore's suggestion is to work slowly and keep track of the parts in order of removal to make the job easier. The good news is that with an hour of so of effort, you can bring back that new-steering-column feel.
