How do I adapt a 61-70 steering wheel to my 72?

[robroy]

While trying to get my new wheel and horn stuff installed, I realized that I hadn't shaved off enough of the protrusion on my 1972 steering shaft for the horn button to fit. The mistake I made was to shave off the "nub" on the end, but I left an excessive amount of thread sticking out beyond the position the nut torques down to.

So I shaved off another 1/16" of an inch or so, but I think I may need to shave off more still.

Here's the new wheel and horn setup.



And here's the wheel without the horn button on. I painted the tip of the shaft yellow, then while the paint was still wet, put the horn button on and depressed it. You can see by the yellow smudge on the button that it's still hitting the shaft!




And here's a close-up so you can see how much of the shaft is still sticking out, above the nut (after torquing the nut to 50 ft/lbs). I'm certainly not proud of how I accidentally abused the nut with my cut-off wheel!



Would anybody who has gone down this road before care to answer a couple questions? Thanks!

1. Should the back side of the horn button ever contact the end of the steering shaft? Or should there always be clearance there?
2. Is it true that this big spring's supposed to be installed under the horn button?
   

Thanks very much for the superb advice!
Robroy

[Calvin Gunter]

Good morning robroy,you have the big spring in the right place.It's intent is to return the horn button back into place after you have depressed it.As for the shaft I think you have enough ground off but you will still need to cut some relief on the back of the horn button where your yellow dot is.Hope this helps,Calvin

[70_F100]

You need to cut more off the shaft to make it correct.

The original nut is much thinner than the self-locking nut you have on it, almost half that thick.

[fordman]

your right the 67-69 nuts are thinner than that nut.

[robroy]

Hi Calvin, 70_F100, and Fordman, thanks very much for replying!

Good morning robroy,you have the big spring in the right place.It's intent is to return the horn button back into place after you have depressed it.

Okay, thanks for letting me know!

As for the shaft I think you have enough ground off but you will still need to cut some relief on the back of the horn button where your yellow dot is.Hope this helps,Calvin

Okay, thanks! I'll go this route if that's what it seems like it'll take in the end, yet I'm trying to modify the shaft sufficiently so that I can recreate the same setup that was used on the early Bumpsides (and as I understand it, they had no holes in their horn buttons).

You need to cut more off the shaft to make it correct.

The original nut is much thinner than the self-locking nut you have on it, almost half that thick.

Ooooh! This is very good information for me, thanks!

Now I would love to find out the precise measurements of the factory nut on those years, so that I can buy or order one to match. Since I gather from photos that the shaft was flush with the end of the nut on early Bumpsides, installing the steering wheel and torquing down the nut gives me an easy way of measuring how much to slice off.

your right the 67-69 nuts are thinner than that nut.

Wow! Thanks for the confirmation Fordman.

Gosh, it would be super handy if somebody happened to have one of these early nuts around and could give me the measurements. Otherwise I'd be guessing with a thinner nut, and I wouldn't want to guess too thin!

Also, is it true that under no conditions is the horn button supposed to contact the tip of the steering shaft?

Calvin, 70_F100, and Fordman, thanks again for the ultra excellent replies!
Robroy

[fordman]

3/8

[70_F100]

I was going to measure the nut on mine when I got home, but it looks like fordman beat me to the punch.

[robroy]

3/8

Thanks very much Fordman! The nut I have on there now is 1/2" or a little less, so I'll find a new nut!

I was going to measure the nut on mine when I got home, but it looks like fordman beat me to the punch.

70_F100, thanks very much for your good thoughts! You have to move fast to beat Fordman.

I'll find a more suitable nut and post more photos as I make progress.

Thanks very much Fordman and 70_F100! I would have never known about this without your help.
Robroy

[fordman]

you got lucky. that was the only nut i had that was that year . the rest i have are 70-77 columns.

[robroy]

Good afternoon Fordman, thanks for replying!

you got lucky. that was the only nut i had that was that year . the rest i have are 70-77 columns.

Thanks very much for this offer Fordman! Yet thanks to 70_F100's guidance in 1968-70 steering wheel hold-down nut (shorter than 71+ nuts), I've managed to get my hands on two NOS nuts--they fit perfectly!

This Afternoon's Update:

I'm amazed that it's been an entire year since my last post to this thread! Here's today's yard view:



All of these photos may be clicked upon to see much larger editions.

Two 350983-S, 5/8-18 nuts arrived from Green Sales, and they were absolutely perfect! Thanks again to 70_F100 for coming up with the part number for this early steering wheel nut, and for letting me know about the Green Sales inventory. That was incredibly helpful and got this conversion jump-started again!

The nuts were $2 each, so with shipping it came to $12.




Here's the 350983-S next to the original 1972 nut.



You can see that the 350983-S is significantly shorter than the 1972 nut! It also has regular threads, while the 1972-style is a distorted-thread lock-nut (a "pinch-nut").




I replaced the 1972-style nut with 350983-S, torqued it to 50 ft/lbs, and measured slightly more than 3/16" of now-extraneous steering shaft.



The steering wheel being pulled:



With the 1972-style nut threaded on to expose slightly less than 3/16" of the steering shaft, I covered everything up as much as possible!



Here's a video of the shaft loosing slightly less than 3/16"! My goal was to leave enough shaft in place to allow it to stick out slightly beyond the torqued 350983-S nut, just to guarantee complete thread engagement.

Video Formats: The WMV video will play nearly anywhere, while the quality H.264 video will only work with fairly up-to-date computers.

High Quality H.264 (22 MB) Medium Quality WMV (11 MB)


After some detailed attention with a flat file, I torqued down the 350983-S nut. Here's what I wound up with--it turned out exactly as I'd hoped!



With the shaft cut down to match the short 350983-S nut, the horn button installed with no trouble at all!




Fordman, thanks again for your reply, and a special thanks to 70_F100 for showing me how to get the NOS 350983-S nuts!

Robroy

[390Nut]

Looking good, Robroy!

[1971ford]

I can't believe how clean your work is!

I did this today... put my '69 wheel on my '72 column. I just twisted the nut on the shaft, sawzalled the few threads/shaft end off, then ground the nut/shaft down a little ways, then the nut threaded right off and back on

[Zorm]

I am doing this same thing but in a 71, thing is when I pulled the old wheel off the doner truck in a yard, I messed up the plastic peice with the three fingers on it, where can I get just that peice?

[Russell J]

Does anyone see why this wouldn't work on a '73-'77 steering column?

[Mancar1]

I do believe it could be done.