Stripping down the Steering Column
With the steering column removed from the car, I decided to strip it down a bit - namely to remove the ignition
lock from the column to free up some knee space for me, but also because I feel like moving the ignition, just
because I can :-). The steering column has a centre core wich does the actual steering, and an outer sleeve to
which the mounts and stalks are attached.
The ignition lock is held on to the steering column by a clamp held on by two of the dreaded
shear
bolts (see left) - justified here, as the ignition lock wouldn't be much use if you could simply unbolt it from
the column!
Getting these out without damaging the ignition lock clamp area is quite tricky - you simply cannot get anything in to grip the remains of the bolt head, due to the countersunk hole and as the clamp body is threaded rather than relying on nuts it isn't possible to grind off the nuts and knock the bolt out.
I figured that the easiest way to get these out would be to drill a hole in the top of each bolt, then screw in an Easy-out to extract the bolts. so I drilled a small hole in each bolt (right).
Now in an ideal world I'd have got both of those holes in the dead centre of each bolt, but as the top wasn't flat
(due to the nature of the shear when the hex part is snapped off) it wasn't easy to start a drill in the centre, and
seeing as how I didn't really need to hit dead centre for the easy-out plan, it wasn't a big deal. It didn't go
quite to plan however - the easy-out started to twist alarmingly, and so not wanting to snap off a section of
hardened steel in the bolt (making it much harder to drill etc) I gave up on this and thought about plan B.
Plan B was to use increasing diameter drill bits to very carefully drill out the top of the shear bolt (which seemed to be made of a soft alloy, as is the clamp) until there is no metal holding the outer section of the clamp in place, and it will just lift off, leaving the bolts sticking out of the back of the clamp which I could then extract with mole grips. This would have been much easier and with less risk of damaging the casing had I got the original drill holes dead centre!
This got the outer section of the clamp off (see left) without much difficulty, and while one of the bolts came
out easily with mole grips, the other didn't want to budge, so I flattened the top off with a file, and drilled a 4
mm hole dead centre, planning to keep increasing the size of the drill bit until there was no bolt left apart from
the threads which would then screw out. But when trying a 6mm drill bit, it bound up and actually screwed the bolt
right through the casing and out of the other side. Not quite what I was after, but as it worked I'm not
complaining!
Having never had a steering lock apart before, I thought I'd have a look at the workings:
The picture on the left shows the ignition in the 'locked' position - there is a thick metal tab protruding from the surface - this is held outwards by a spring and there is a corresponding groove cut into the steering column (see right) into which it slots, preventing the steering column from turning.
When the key is turned to the 'unlocked' position the tab withdraws back into the casing (below left) allowing the steering column to turn freely again.
The raised section around the locking tab fits into the cut-out in the steering column outer casing, to help hold the lock in the correct orientation by preventing it from either sliding round the case, or moving up or down the column.
I didn't see any point in removing the indicator stalks or steering wheel, as they were as safe stored on the column as anywhere, and other than perhaps making some new multiplugs for the wiring not much would change on the column, although I may decide to cut the column and fit a universal joint to enable the wheel to be positioned at a better angle than can be achieved with just a drop bracket and a top quality snap-off steering wheel boss would also be good - the bolt-on one I had originally fitted wasn't exactly top quality, and the locking tabs on it tended to stick on sometimes. I also lent that to a mate to fit to his mini for a magazine feature, which he did, and then lost it, which wasn't really a big deal given my plans to replace it anyway.
The ignition lock is held on to the steering column by a clamp held on by two of the dreaded
shear
bolts (see left) - justified here, as the ignition lock wouldn't be much use if you could simply unbolt it from
the column!Getting these out without damaging the ignition lock clamp area is quite tricky - you simply cannot get anything in to grip the remains of the bolt head, due to the countersunk hole and as the clamp body is threaded rather than relying on nuts it isn't possible to grind off the nuts and knock the bolt out.
I figured that the easiest way to get these out would be to drill a hole in the top of each bolt, then screw in an Easy-out to extract the bolts. so I drilled a small hole in each bolt (right).
Now in an ideal world I'd have got both of those holes in the dead centre of each bolt, but as the top wasn't flat
(due to the nature of the shear when the hex part is snapped off) it wasn't easy to start a drill in the centre, and
seeing as how I didn't really need to hit dead centre for the easy-out plan, it wasn't a big deal. It didn't go
quite to plan however - the easy-out started to twist alarmingly, and so not wanting to snap off a section of
hardened steel in the bolt (making it much harder to drill etc) I gave up on this and thought about plan B.Plan B was to use increasing diameter drill bits to very carefully drill out the top of the shear bolt (which seemed to be made of a soft alloy, as is the clamp) until there is no metal holding the outer section of the clamp in place, and it will just lift off, leaving the bolts sticking out of the back of the clamp which I could then extract with mole grips. This would have been much easier and with less risk of damaging the casing had I got the original drill holes dead centre!
This got the outer section of the clamp off (see left) without much difficulty, and while one of the bolts came
out easily with mole grips, the other didn't want to budge, so I flattened the top off with a file, and drilled a 4
mm hole dead centre, planning to keep increasing the size of the drill bit until there was no bolt left apart from
the threads which would then screw out. But when trying a 6mm drill bit, it bound up and actually screwed the bolt
right through the casing and out of the other side. Not quite what I was after, but as it worked I'm not
complaining!Having never had a steering lock apart before, I thought I'd have a look at the workings:
The picture on the left shows the ignition in the 'locked' position - there is a thick metal tab protruding from the surface - this is held outwards by a spring and there is a corresponding groove cut into the steering column (see right) into which it slots, preventing the steering column from turning.
When the key is turned to the 'unlocked' position the tab withdraws back into the casing (below left) allowing the steering column to turn freely again.
The raised section around the locking tab fits into the cut-out in the steering column outer casing, to help hold the lock in the correct orientation by preventing it from either sliding round the case, or moving up or down the column.
I didn't see any point in removing the indicator stalks or steering wheel, as they were as safe stored on the column as anywhere, and other than perhaps making some new multiplugs for the wiring not much would change on the column, although I may decide to cut the column and fit a universal joint to enable the wheel to be positioned at a better angle than can be achieved with just a drop bracket and a top quality snap-off steering wheel boss would also be good - the bolt-on one I had originally fitted wasn't exactly top quality, and the locking tabs on it tended to stick on sometimes. I also lent that to a mate to fit to his mini for a magazine feature, which he did, and then lost it, which wasn't really a big deal given my plans to replace it anyway.