Intermediate Steering Shaft

Had to straighten out my steering wheel and removed the intermediate shaft. Cannot for the life of me get it to sit all the way down. Is it okay to run like this? It’s still grabbing about half an inch of spline but I can’t get it down any further. Or does anyone have tips to get it to slide down more?

 

Easier when off but open up the flange slightly with bolt removed. I don’t think it sits all the way down on both sides.

Just be careful I spread one too wide and stripped threads trying to screw in bolt. If thread not grabbing squeeze it with pliers in place then try again.

 

I’ll give it a go. Just hard to get something in there to pry open the flange

 

Hard to take pics with wheel on but I think mine does sit a little lower on the splines but not all the way flush

 

I see, thanks for the pics. I’ll try and get it down a little further for peace of mind.

 

As long as you can get the pinch bolt fed through with no resistance (the thinner part of the shaft between splines) then you have enough shaft engagement. From your pictures, it looks wrong.

 

Remove the retainer bolt and use a flathead to pry open the sleeve, if the flathead doesn't provide enough leverage, use a prybar and pry open the sleeve using a twisting motion on the collar. Just don't open it too much as the bolt that goes in has the possibility of stripping.

 

I think there is a decent amount of leeway with those . I had to open mine up quite a bit for a 1” body lift kit , no problems “yet”

 

Thanks all for the input! I went out and bought a set of pry bars, I guess it was a simple as spreading the flange a tad and hammering it down