[walkerjay]

As I am wrapping up my front suspension rebuild, I'm planning on installing the column next, so I can get my steering in order and functional. Two questions:

1. As I look thru the pics of a column breakaway view in my manual, there are a gazillion components. My original intention was to disassemble the whole thing and rebuild it. Currently, I am thinking of just an overall cleanup and paint job. Will save me a lot of time and trouble. What do you think?

2. As you can see from the pics below, my car seems to have an original shifter hump so I am figuring it was originally a floor shifter. My column has no provision for a hand operated shifter at the interior but I do notice some sort of lever down near the rag joint. You can see it in the pic, it has a hole in the end as if it hooks up to some linkage or something. I do not recall anything ever being hooked up to it and i am not 100% sure what it is. Any ideas? If it turns out its something I don't need, how much of a pain will it be to remove it....or should I just leave it alone. thanks.

gratuitous steering box pic. Only 3 hours work. One piece at a time, right?

 

[walkerjay]

I decided to spruce up, not gonna pull this thing apart.

edit: Column is cleaning up ok except it seems I can not take off that rubber pad at the bottom where it meets the firewall without some disassembly. Also, seems several parts on the column can be loosened and swiveled around therefore requiring putting them back exactly how they came off or adjusting things and figuring out that stuff later. I'd rather avoid moving things around and do my best to clean it up intact, without removing anything. My rubber pad is in about a 6 out of 10 shape.