Thread: 1929 Essex Highboy

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Still here guys and gals--------Can't keep a good man down!
Been tinkering, little here, little there, don'tchaknow? I made up two braces for the radiator and grille shell a while ago. I didn't have my camera out in garage when I did them, Daughter had them at a little league football game! I will do a post later on with explanation and after the fact photos. But for now, I took my Ranger steering column and with a hacksaw---made it shorter! haaahaaa. Well --------- it worked!
I cut the tube off above the accordian collapsible section, enough to make the column as short as I needed it above. Then pulled it off the shaft, although not as easy as it sounds------- Then I cut the tube off right at the upper end of the crinkle area, then cut the mounting plate off the end. Then I cut the shaft off at the distance I had calculated earlier. It is just a hollow tube. Then I took a scrap section of steering, a universal with a piece of double D shaft on it. From this I cut the double D long enough to go inside my universal on the essex and up into the hollow column shaft. After indexing all this so the wheel would be oriented properly when done, I marked everything, then pulled it all apart. Then I drilled and tapped a hole in the side of the hollow tube to correspond with the flat on the double D section, inserted that piece into the tube and put in a bolt in threaded hole and tightened it up/down!! Then I took the stick welder and welded the double D piece around the end of the tube shaft and double D section. Then I cut the lock bolt off on the side, drilled into it a bit for countersink then welded the hole in, making the cut off bolt a part of the shaft (so it can't ever come loose).

After doing that I ground down the welds so the bearing would go back on, then slid the crinkle cut piece back on over the shaft and welded it to the shortened tube. Then drove the bearing back into the end of the crinkle cut. All told this gave me a steering column with the crush section intact and a double D shaft projecting out of the bottom that fit into my U joint at the top of my steering box.