a question on xj's steering shafts

so i made my own brace/steering box mount around my unibody section that holds the steering box in place and i bolted it all up/welded without attaching the steering shaft. i really dont want to have to take the box out right now so is there a way to retract the shaft a little and then extend it back over the splines on the box?

Yes, but I may well be an idiot for doing it this way. (Likely.) I was tired, frustrated, and unwilling to torch it hot enough. So, I dropped the knee bolster/trim of the dash, undid the two bolts that hold the steering column to the underside of the dash, undid the two bolts holding the column to the floor, and slid the whole damn thing back. When putting everything back, I had to undo the driver's side dash brace in order for things to line up again. It worked, and everything was fine afterwards.

Hopefully someone else will chime in and tell us how dumb I was, and have an easier way to do it.

so what ur saying is i should take the four minutes to unbolt the bolt, hook up that linkage/lines, then bolt it back up?

That's what I did, but it takes longer than four minutes. It'll take longer than prying the joint on, but it's less aggravation IMHO. I just couldn't get the joint back onto the steering box. Oh, and make sure the bolt that goes through the joint, and across the nitch on the input shaft of the box is removed. I spent several minutes trying to push the column enough to slide it on before I realized I missed a step.

tonexj said:

so what ur saying is i should take the four minutes to unbolt the bolt, hook up that linkage/lines, then bolt it back up?

Click to expand...

yes.