'73 T/A Steering Shaft 180 Off?

[HighSpeedSentry]

This is maddening.

I bought a '73 Trans am and noticed the cancel cam was not canceling the turn signals.

After pulling the steering wheel, I noticed the steering shaft in the column is pointed precisely in the 6 o'clock direction when the wheels are straight.

With the wheels straight, the Pittman's arm is straightforward, tie rod lengths are even, and I have the same amount of turns on the steering wheel, lock to lock.

So, my thought was to pull the column, spin the steering shaft 180 degrees, and put everything back together.

That didn't work because everything is keyed to go only one way.

Column steering shaft to intermediate shaft is keyed, rag joint is keyed using two different bolt sizes, and gearbox shaft is keyed with a flat spot.

What the hell am I missing here?

 

[chuckitall]

Just a thought: was this car "restored," or did they replace the column?

I've seen many 2nd-gen cars from the factory with manual steering, thinking a manual column might be different.

Maybe it has the wrong column.

Wondering too, if the year of the column makes a difference.

I ran into this back in the 80's while working at a Chevy dealer, but I can't remember how I fixed it (that was 40 years ago).

I'm thinking it was the plastic cancel cam.

I thought they could be installed either way, like they have two "key-ways".