Loose Steering Column/Tilt

First question!! please help!
Anyone have a loose steering/tilt column?
Tore it apart tonight to find the culprit...seems to be the gears that mesh together are not tight. Has anyone experienced this? Any solution other than new parts? I don’t see anything specifically loose or out of adjustment. I’m sure this is from the PO chelumping..(drinking cheladas while jumping the truck over bumps)
There must be a way to tighten this together. So annoying to have the column feel loose while driving.
Any suggestions are much appreciated!

 

Welp, I took a screw driver and pushed the teeth together on both sides. That tightened it up for now. Won’t use the tilt for a while and see if it stays. Still looking for ideas from anyone.....

 

Check out the posts from @Gen1FTMFW in the thread below.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...st-gen-edition.138573/page-9541#post-22180357

 

Had the same problem, kinda, I had an inch play from north to south on the wheel, was NOT the tack weld solution for a fix, was the actually gears or teeth.

I found a truck that was totaled that had 80k miles and bought the entire steering column for 150.00.
Got it installed and everything is perfect again.

Old parts shown here