Hey all! My girlfriend is a brand new jeep owner, bought a 1999 cherokee sport, sits nice and pretty on 32s, 3rd day owning and she loses all play with the steering wheel in a parking lot with me in the passenger seat.

After a few minutes of looking I find that where the steering column and steering shaft interact has grinded all of its teeth out, the bolt to pinch/clamp onto the steering column was incredibly loose, im surprised it didnt fall out.

torqued the bolt down about as snug as I could and we got it home, but now what? Is this where the steering shaft should be sat on the steering column? It seems like it really only had about 3/4 in of contact on the column. Has another inch of teeth space up the column. The teeth that it does interact with got grinded pretty damn good, had some metal shavings on the floorboad.

Are these steering shafts adjustable? Can I bring it up to grip onto some new teeth and avoid ripping out a new steering column from a junk car?

Any and all help is appreciated! It's got 248k on the odometer and ran her $3k, so expected to have problems, but man! They came quick



I'll get some hopefully better photos tomo, I know these aren't the best but were taken in a walmart parking lot lol.

 

Junk yard parts, or borgeson steering shaft.

 

Don't trust just moving the joint up the splines.. If it's stripped it's stripped...If it fails on the highway she's in big trouble..Get different parts and fix it correctly for her...

 

Well, the steering shaft doesn't appear to be fully seated on the splines. There should be an undercut notch on the splined shaft. The bolt is supposed to slip through that.

The internal splines look pretty messed up. However, you could try removing the bolt, then push the shaft further on the splines until the undercut appears in the bolt hole, then see if you can tighten the bolt. The shaft needs to index properly so the notch lines up. You may have to disconnect the end on the box. Make sure the steering wheel is centered and locked (so you don't mess up the clock spring) and the tires are straight forward if you do this. The shaft telescopes so you should be able to extend it.

 

Yeah lst guy didn't line the teeth up right, it's got an extra big tooth and an extra big slot for it to slide into, last guy Neanderthal'd it halfway on and called it a day there, although I might have done exactly what was warned against with the clock spring! It has no horn now, and it's got an airbag light, girlfriend was messing around with it and was spinning it to the left while it was loose to I just have to turn it to the right a couple of times? how can I tell the steering wheel is centered

 

You may have (likely) damaged the clock spring and it will need replacing. Lot's of YT vids available.