My 1978 Dodge Monaco 4 door sedan.

[Gary P]

Sorry, Gary. I know there is a repair kit for the steering coupling readily available from
several places, so if that's the "grommet" you're referring to, no worries there.
The source of your resistance/grinding? That's a bit tougher to answer...

Perhaps there is a difference in engagement distance between the splines of the old box
and the new one and when you reinstalled everything, it put the whole thing in a bind?
Or maybe, God forbid, there was damage inflicted in some part of the designed-in
collapsing feature of the shaft?

In any event, thank you for updating us and I do so enjoy the way you write!
I can commiserate with your struggles (I'm sure most of us can) because we've "been there"
too.
I'm going to defer to the more expert fellas here now - they'll know what to do!
Ed

Thanks Ed!

The grommet I'm referring to is the one that holds the end of the shifter rod (that drops vertically to the transmission) to the shift plate on the column. The union between the two was impossible to remove without destroying the grommet.

As for the resistance - I am stumped. I know sound and vibration travels through solid objects, but surely the resistance from the new steering box wasn't so that it traveled all the way up the steering column to be heard right at the end by the steering wheel? I mean, I'm no engineer, but I guess that's possible.

 

[Don Frelier]

Not to make you feel bad but you could have separated the box from the column and did some testing before tearing out the whole column.
It looks like you still have the old pressure hose on there. Please consider replacing that.
Hopefully you get it worked out.
Stick with it.
It seems I noticed something similar just by dropping the column too far into the coupler. Make sure that the shoes are centered vertically in the grooves of the coupler. It might be that simple

 

[Gary P]

Morning guys.

Last night I messed around with the column, and began repairing the messed-up splines. I saw about 1/4" of in-and-outward play in the column. I spotted this circlip (if that's what you call them) which needed to be slid a short distance back into the groove it lives in.

This eliminated the play! The column was still smooth and turning well.

I tapped the steering wheel back on.

It all locked up again.

What sorcery is this?

 

[HawkRod]

Remember that your steering column locks when the key is out. Also, I am not sure what the gear selector might do, although it shouldn't affect the way it steers depending on the gear. At any rate, since this stuff is now loose, check those areas. (I have always had floor shift Mopars, both auto and stick, so I am not familiar if and how the PRNDL mechanism might affect stuff)

 

[Gary P]

Hi guys and hope you've all had a good weekend.

Me and wifey spent some time at the shop Saturday, she had some tax paperwork to finish up so I used the time to pull the column apart and see what the heck this drag/bind is.

First, off came the turn signal assembly. Three screws did this. That metal plate pictured around the column holds it all flush. Also a flat head screw (bottom left) removes the turn signal stalk. This was all incredibly scary so I took many photos as I removed stuff.

Once that was out the way and the electrics pulled though enough to give me room, it exposed the upper bearing

I could still feel the drag/bind behind the next section of column so off came that part, which exposed this...

The steering lock assembly.

Moving this around showed me that this is the area that the drag is happening. There is about 1/4 inch of "springy movement" in the column. There should not be. It was the fault of this dang circlip...

That circlip is popping out of it's groove, allowing the entire column to slide forward and bind the steering lock wheel against the locking plate. This might explain it a little better...

I put the whole thing back together, joined everything back up to the steering box, bolted it all down, and put the steering wheel back on. There was the bind, but of course I knew what and where it was coming from now.

So I took a pry bar against the steering wheel nut and levered the column towards me - the steering was buttery smooth. As soon as I let go of the pry bar, the column moved forwards and bound up on the lock plate. We established this earlier, but I needed to see it in action, in the car. Don't ask me why, I'm weird like that.

Luckily, when I pried the column forward, I could see that circlip and the groove it was supposed to be sitting in, and wasn't. So I went to NAPA and bought two new circlips almost identical, and some circlip pliers.

Well, that was a classic waste of time because the new circlips didn't sit in that groove properly. Swearing ensued. Lots of swearing. In fact, some of my swear word combos hit max score, as Chrysler, the Monaco, me, and everything in my line of sight was scorned for simply existing.

I pulled the column forward and sat the original circlip in the groove. It worked. For a second. A little pop and out the circlip came.

I put my glasses on and looked at the OG circlip little sumbitch a-hole piece of sh....one side of it was rounded off, it wasn't square and flush, it was worn.

So I turned the circlip 180degrees, with the fresh hard edge pushed up against the edge of the groove...it popped satisfyingly into the groove and wouldn't come out no matter how much I manipulated the set-up.

So the moral to my story is, circlips are the spawn of satan. I am mostly stupid. This entire debacle could have been sorted by turning a circlip 180 degrees with the column in the car, and I wouldn't have gone greyer than a 90 year old hippie, worrying that I need to buy a new column set-up from Summit Racing for $200,000 or whatever they are going for.

The system is now bled, I've been on a test drive, it's pretty magical how much less slop there is in the steering, and if I ever have to remove a steering column from an old Dodge again, I might run to Tibet and become a monk instead.

Now this is over I must thank you all for your input. Sure do appreciate you.

 

[Don Frelier]

Glad you stuck with it and got it back together.
It's always satisfying to solve a mystery and learn something at the same time.
Just looking at the column gives me good memories of my 77.
Ah to be young again.

 

[Gary P]

Glad you stuck with it and got it back together.
It's always satisfying to solve a mystery and learn something at the same time.
Just looking at the column gives me good memories of my 77.
Ah to be young again.

Thanks Don! You got any pics of your '77? Sure would like to see it!

You are right, it's so satisfying to solve the mystery and learn how this car is put together a little more. The frustration from knowing it was such an easy fix is really bugging me though - talk about "the long way round"!!

I hope this serves someone else on this site at some point, it would give me great pleasure to be able to give back what I take from FBBO.

 

[HawkRod]

Hi guys and hope you've all had a good weekend.

Me and wifey spent some time at the shop Saturday, she had some tax paperwork to finish up so I used the time to pull the column apart and see what the heck this drag/bind is.

First, off came the turn signal assembly. Three screws did this. That metal plate pictured around the column holds it all flush. Also a flat head screw (bottom left) removes the turn signal stalk. This was all incredibly scary so I took many photos as I removed stuff.

View attachment 1059209

Once that was out the way and the electrics pulled though enough to give me room, it exposed the upper bearing

View attachment 1059208

I could still feel the drag/bind behind the next section of column so off came that part, which exposed this...

View attachment 1059207
The steering lock assembly.

Moving this around showed me that this is the area that the drag is happening. There is about 1/4 inch of "springy movement" in the column. There should not be. It was the fault of this dang circlip...
View attachment 1059206

That circlip is popping out of it's groove, allowing the entire column to slide forward and bind the steering lock wheel against the locking plate. This might explain it a little better...
View attachment 1059214

I put the whole thing back together, joined everything back up to the steering box, bolted it all down, and put the steering wheel back on. There was the bind, but of course I knew what and where it was coming from now.

So I took a pry bar against the steering wheel nut and levered the column towards me - the steering was buttery smooth. As soon as I let go of the pry bar, the column moved forwards and bound up on the lock plate. We established this earlier, but I needed to see it in action, in the car. Don't ask me why, I'm weird like that.

Luckily, when I pried the column forward, I could see that circlip and the groove it was supposed to be sitting in, and wasn't. So I went to NAPA and bought two new circlips almost identical, and some circlip pliers.

Well, that was a classic waste of time because the new circlips didn't sit in that groove properly. Swearing ensued. Lots of swearing. In fact, some of my swear word combos hit max score, as Chrysler, the Monaco, me, and everything in my line of sight was scorned for simply existing.

I pulled the column forward and sat the original circlip in the groove. It worked. For a second. A little pop and out the circlip came.

I put my glasses on and looked at the OG circlip little sumbitch a-hole piece of sh....one side of it was rounded off, it wasn't square and flush, it was worn.

So I turned the circlip 180degrees, with the fresh hard edge pushed up against the edge of the groove...it popped satisfyingly into the groove and wouldn't come out no matter how much I manipulated the set-up.

View attachment 1059203

So the moral to my story is, circlips are the spawn of satan. I am mostly stupid. This entire debacle could have been sorted by turning a circlip 180 degrees with the column in the car, and I wouldn't have gone greyer than a 90 year old hippie, worrying that I need to buy a new column set-up from Summit Racing for $200,000 or whatever they are going for.

The system is now bled, I've been on a test drive, it's pretty magical how much less slop there is in the steering, and if I ever have to remove a steering column from an old Dodge again, I might run to Tibet and become a monk instead.

Now this is over I must thank you all for your input. Sure do appreciate you.

"...circlips are the spawn of satan."

You are great at telling stories of your "journey"!!!

Trust me, there are many other parts that may also be "satan's spawn" on these cars, but it seems like you worked through issues with one of them - well done!

Hawk

 

[moparedtn]

It seems I noticed something similar just by dropping the column too far into the coupler. Make sure that the shoes are centered vertically in the grooves of the coupler. It might be that simple

That's what I was trying to say too, yeah - too far down, putting things in a grindy bind.

 

[Kern Dog]

I posted before about troubles that I have had with the steering coupler and had a few responses that pissed me off.
Mine slides right on.
Just fell into place.....
Yeah, I'm having trouble because I am such an idiot.
No.
Sometimes the parts just don't fit together easily. Sometimes they have a death grip to the other part.
Gary's steering coupler took a pickle fork to separate. Yeah, for me, that has been standard fare rather than they just pulled apart easily or some other story.

 

[HawkRod]

I posted before about troubles that I have had with the steering coupler and had a few responses that pissed me off.
Mine slides right on.
Just fell into place.....
Yeah, I'm having trouble because I am such an idiot.
No.
Sometimes the parts just don't fit together easily. Sometimes they have a death grip to the other part.
Gary's steering coupler took a pickle fork to separate. Yeah, for me, that has been standard fare rather than they just pulled apart easily or some other story.

Fully agree.

On my 70 Road Runner the steering coupler was easy to pull apart. On my 73 Road Runner, that was another story. I also used a pickle fork, a pry bar and countless curse words before I was able to separate it. I guess it had been on there a long time and liked right where it was, thank you very much...

 

[Don Frelier]

We use a lot of this stuff

 

[Don Frelier]

I only have a couple pictures of my 77.
This one isn't mine but it looked exactly like this car.

 

[Gary P]

I posted before about troubles that I have had with the steering coupler and had a few responses that pissed me off.
Mine slides right on.
Just fell into place.....
Yeah, I'm having trouble because I am such an idiot.
No.
Sometimes the parts just don't fit together easily. Sometimes they have a death grip to the other part.
Gary's steering coupler took a pickle fork to separate. Yeah, for me, that has been standard fare rather than they just pulled apart easily or some other story.

I agree with you Kern. I cannot see any situation with an old car, where ANYTHING just slides right off, and back on again, unclips without breaking, isn't rusted closed, rusted open, rusted off, or rusted completely out of existence, rounded off, split, missing, no longer available, or if one buys parts from Auto Zone, completely incorrect. I've never had it easy with cars either, brother. Ever. This old Monaco is no exception. We fight on!

 

[Triplegreen500]

One good thing about the "long way round" is, it lets you put hands on more pieces and parts, and potentially find other issues you never would have found if you just did it the short way.

And, you get to tell great stories!

The only time to get mad at yourself is, if you go the long way around...a second time. I've heard.

 

[Don Frelier]

I cannot see any situation with an old car, where ANYTHING just slides right off, and back on again, unclips without breaking, isn't rusted closed, rusted open, rusted off, or rusted completely out of existence, rounded off, split, missing, no longer available

Try old cars in Upstate NY.
You get really good at working on rusted stuff.
My son had a 1990 Dodge Ram with 3 sets of brake lines underneath, you had to figure out which one's were in use.
We replaced two of the lines and ripped out a pile of half rusted out tubing.
It used to be a common "trick" to cut through bed and fold back the bottom to work on the sending units in pickups.
You commonly see trucks on Craigslist with cracked frames or holes in the frames. (People actually think someone will buy them)

 

[Greg Ducato]

Congrats Gary! Your persistence won out over the evil clip that conspired against you. Revel in your victory!

 

[Gary P]

Try old cars in Upstate NY.
You get really good at working on rusted stuff.
My son had a 1990 Dodge Ram with 3 sets of brake lines underneath, you had to figure out which one's were in use.
We replaced two of the lines and ripped out a pile of half rusted out tubing.
It used to be a common "trick" to cut through bed and fold back the bottom to work on the sending units in pickups.
You commonly see trucks on Craigslist with cracked frames or holes in the frames. (People actually think someone will buy them)

Oh I can imagine cars in upstate NY are like cars from my Motherland of England - spent their lives damp, and have more corrosion than a hundred cars from the dry states. I'm lucky to be in Utah, where three months of the year is wet and salty - it still takes its toll - but nothing like what you have to put up with out there Don - I'm sorry for your plight. I get it.

 

[Gary P]

One good thing about the "long way round" is, it lets you put hands on more pieces and parts, and potentially find other issues you never would have found if you just did it the short way.

And, you get to tell great stories!

The only time to get mad at yourself is, if you go the long way around...a second time. I've heard.

I agree - I'm definitely more familiar with the car after all this! That Charger in your profile pic is beautiful by the way!

 

[Gary P]

Congrats Gary! Your persistence won out over the evil clip that conspired against you. Revel in your victory!

Greg, you legend! I am reveling as I type this!!