My '88 Cavalier Z24 has tilt steering and I am able to move the steering wheel almost a half inch upward and to the right. The movement occurs at the "joint" in the column where tilts. But it moves as described above without pulling the tilt lever. The car is a 5 speed stick. I also had a '83 Chevy S-10, automatic on column, tilt steering, which did the exact same thing. (I drove it like that quite awhile before selling it). Anyone know what causes this, if it's dangerous, how to fix it, etc? I actually have a donor car ('89) which I could rob the column off of, but slightly wrong color (blue vs. grey).
Tilt steering moves side to side
Jul 23, 2005
4 Replies
I would think that you have a fracture in the pot metal that the joint is made out of. You might be able to take apart the column on your donor car and on the Cavalier and exchange parts to get the Cavalier working. It takes a special tool to take apart these columns. SnapOn sells it.
This is quite dangerous, if it comes apart you lose steering.
Ted
It will get looser and looser. This is a well known problem. The screws come loose in the column. You can take the column apart and tighten the screws and use a threadlocker. I put a bracket on mine to hold it in place instead.
The screws came loose. Most GM's that have that type of column do that eventually.
Yes You Have to take the steering wheel off and all the sleeves on the steering colum and there are two screw pins on each side remove one and put thread lock on it and repace it then also do the other side there is a spring that helps you colum move up and down you must use a philips head screwdriver and unscrew the silver holder one quarter turn to release this this will make it easier to do the side pins hope this helps
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