I had the wobbly steering wheel on my '87 so I tore the column down and tightened the four bolts and used red thread lock on the bottom two. Anyway after a few hours and removing and reassembling, I got everything back together. Everything works fine and steering wheel is solid, but when I finished I looked down to see this little black piece of metal laying on seat Can't remember where it went. Should I be concerned or can I just count that as a weight reduction mod? Haha

 

Looks like it was a holder for some wires or something....Didn't see one of those on my brothers '89 Laredo when we tightened his up, though. Could've fallen off or been removed at some point before, so I have no idea. It doesn't LOOK like it'd be really really important, but I think it's crusier54 who's the Renix expert, so he'll probably know!

 

Alright thanks. Yeah, everything seems to be working just fine so I won't worry too much about it. But hopefully someone can chime in so I can at least know what it was supposed to be for.

 

Just did a little Googling and found this article for fixing the loose column, but for a '91 YJ. About halfway down is a picture of an electrical contact that looks SIMILAR to yours, but not exact. I'm kinda wondering it that's that it really is....

http://www.bc4x4.com/tech/2009/jeep-steering/

EDIT: According to another column fix thread, that spring I mentioned is for the key buzzer. Got it from here: https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f51/st...repairs-39494/

 

Yeah I saw those when trying to find out what it was. I did have that white plastic piece with a similar looking copper piece attached to it which would have been for the buzzer. Idk if somehow the two pieces went into the slot together or what though.