I haven't really "looked" hard at it yet, but the wheels a little loose, I heard that there is 4 bolts inside that loosen over time. What's the easiest way to get to them?Thanks for any and all input!

 

You will need a puller to get the steering wheel off. Just your regular "crow's foot" type puller will work fine.

 

is it the tilt knuckle?
if so, you'll have to start at the top by removing the steering wheel, the horn, signal and key mechanism to get all the way down to the tilt ball.
there is 2 pins you'll have to try to remove.
it's much easier if you remove the column and do this on the work bench.

but once you do that, it's waaay easier to just get a replacement from the junk yard, and replace the whole column. less work and much less aggravation.

the same thing happened to me and i just replaced the whole column.

once replaced, DON'T use the steering wheel to pull yourself into the jeep.
it's a bad habit that's very hard to break. i still find myself doing it the odd time.

 

tke off the horn button. it just pulls right off. then there is a nut, just take that off and then use a puller. you can rent a steering wheel puller from autozone. i think its like 15 bucks, then when you take it back they give you a refund, so its free. there should be a little wire too, but i forget what to do with tha. its been a while since i took mine off.

 

I got it fixed this past weekend, I went ahwad and put a new ignition switch on it while I had it off, the old ones "ears" were tore off making it hard for my wife to start. Thanks for all of the help guys!

 

The easy way would be simply use a hammer and your knees! Watched a vid of a guy doing it on his classic MG, and guess what, the XJ steering bolt is almost exactly the same. You just back the nut off til it's exactly level with the bolt (not off or under, you'll strip the threads!), then just whack the hell out of it with a flat face hammer (or steel mallet first, then hit the mallet with a hammer) while you pull back on the wheel with your knees and pull on the top at the same time. A few good whacks got my XJ's wheel right off, no problems; still steers like a dream. Saves a trip to the store and a tool you'll only need once.

 

Any tips on how to get the steering wheel/column off of a 96? I have airbags and the whole 9 yards on the wheel. I had an older xj and it was just as easy as you guys said it was, but now i'm trying to figure out how to do my 96.

I tilted it down to take off the dash bezel and now it won't tilt back up

 

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=943272

I used this link to get myself started disassembling my wheel. Helped out a ton for those of us who have a 95-96 xj.

But for my scenario I took off the air bag assembly and thought to myself, let me try to use the tilt one more time. After spending all that time taking apart the wheel I tried it one more time and sure enough it worked...