Josh Keady- Unnumbered entry: We dislike fixing the unexpectedly broken.

When you have to fix something inside of a steering column, this is basically the order: 1: remove the steering wheel, 2: pray that you can see the problem without removing more stuff.  That never works.  The first thing that you see is the horn slip ring.  You’d think that a horn button would be the simplest thing in the world, but it turns out there’s one catch to any button that’s mounted on a steering wheel, and it’s that the steering wheel has to be able to turn 360 degrees at least once.  Three screws (at 12:00, 5:00, and 8:30) secure the signal switch.

This is what you see after removing the slip collar, removing the signal switch screws, and popping out said switch (rather, prying out the switch).  This is the upper support bearing for the steering column and it just pulls right off.

After you pull out the bearing, you can remove the outer cover (dangling with the turn signal switch in the picture). I took this picture as reference for how that plastic bushing fits.  Behind my big obtrusive hand, I found this...

Ah yes.  That little broken piece at the end was the piece that actually moved the shift tube up and down (back when, you know, the ball was actually attached to something)  Considering how small it is, it’s surprising that it didn’t break a lot sooner (because I’ve been positively reefing on that shifter for a year at least).

:(

The shifter was held in with a roll pin through the shift collar on the steering column, so I extracted the broken ball piece, drove out the roll pin, and pulled out the lever, too.  Then I lubed up the sticky shift tube that caused the lever to break in the first place and put the column back together sans shift lever.  When I find a new lever, I can just slide it in place, drive back in the roll pin, and drive away.  Unfortunately the new lever will probably be so expensive, I’ll never be able to afford to put gas in it again.