Removing the instrument bezel from my ‘73 Charger

[Charger Fan]

Finally getting around to taking the instrument panel bezel out to get wood grain and silver trim redone. The chassis manual has the instructions for dropping the steering column which is straight forward. Its the installation back in place and the issue of "centering" the column without the C-4157 specialty tool that concerns me. I see the three bolts that hold the toe plate in place on the firewall. There are also 2 bolts that hold the O-ring retainer plate to the toe plate. Seems like you could just take the bolts out of the toe plate plate and the bolts out of the bracket that hold the column to the instrument panel support bracket and the column would drop. Do you need to take the two bolts out of the O-ring retainer? Seems like if you don't have to do that there won't be a centering issue. Any suggestions or feedback would be appreciated.

 

[pnora]

If its just the bezel I doubt the column has to be removed. The most that I can see it just lowering it enough for the bezel or cluster removal.

 

[Nacho-RT74]

Just remove the two bolts of the centering bracket and leave alone the one on firewall. That should be quite enough and won’t be dealing with any centering or alignment.

And if you want still to deal with the firewall bracket, use a sharpie to draw the outline over the firewall itself on the actual position and when reattaching relocate on same position per the perimeter draw.

 

[70chall440]

Need to "center" steering column?

 

[Charger Fan]

Need to "center" steering column?

Thanks for the reference. It got me thinking of the lower bearing mentioned in the postsing. I took a look at what I have. I'm not an expert but it looks like a bearing up inside the steering tube on the engine side of the firewall. I'm thinking I don't have to worry about centering. What do you think? Is that a bearing in the photo?

 

[70chall440]

Yeah that looks like a bearing but someone else can chime in. I used a metal roller bearing when I rebuilt my 71 steering column.