As there has been a couple of threads recently about steering, I reckon a good way to start is to show the conversion from power steering to manual, just finished this a few days ago.
To start with, my power steering box was worn out, I had adjusted it as much as I could, so much so that any further adjustment and the steering would become notchy when steering. it was ok when driving at under 30mph but anything over this and it would wander, on the motorway it would want all three lanes. Add to this how light the Mopar power steering is, the lack of feedback from the wheels when driving and after talking to a few people on here, the decision was made to switch to manual steering.
This is how I did it, the first pic shows the original set-up, standard Mopar coupler connecting power steering box to power steering column.
The bit circled in yellow is the crimped metal lid that goes over the orange rubber seal on the top of the coupler, it also shows the spring clip that some dealerships fitted to prevent the coupler coming apart while driving
both the crimped metal lid and the spring clip (if you have one fitted) need to be removed to allow the column to be separated from the coupler.The bit circled in red is the steering column bearing, the screw circled in green goes through the hole circled in green in the top of the pic, mine was seized solid, more on this later.
) and it's time to remove the steering shaft pin, outlined in yellow in the below pic. It should just knock out using a hammer and a punch of some sort (large nail, old screwdriver etc), the pin is a very, very tight fit though. I used a length of 1 inch hollow box section steel tubing with a "V" cut in the end as a support under the pin, this meant I could hit it with a hammer without damaging the column. Once the pin was flush with the end of the column, I put a small dimple in the end of the pin using a grinding stone on a Dremel type tool. I found that as I was doing this with the column still in the car, I couldn't hold a punch of some sort and get enough of a swing to hit it hard enough with a hammer. I ended up using the pointed end of an old chipping hammer resting in the dimple of the pin, being able to hold this in place by it's handle, gave me the ability to get a good swing at the opposite end of the hammer head, the pin was drifted out - eventually.
