Hi, hopefully someone can steer me in the right direction on this. I have been trying to help my father in law with a problem on his 69 z28. We removed the old ignition barrel as it felt, well loose. We pressed the little tap and slid out the old barrel and replaced it with a reproduction barrel. Now we have a problem in that the lock won't turn far enough counter clockwise to lock the steering and allow the key to be removed. I noticed that the piece the barrel slots into( the little gear part) is leaning to the right (/) when it should be pointing straight up. Could removing the old barrel have caused this, is it an easy fix, or are we looking at pulling the column to rectify. The car will start, but obviously leaving the key in the ignition is not ideal.

Many thanks for any help and apologies for such a long question on my first post. The car is a 69 z80 in lemans blue, with white interior. Will post a couple of pics later.

 

The ignition switch is on top of the steering column, down more towards the firewall. If your key lock mechanism was very sloppy, a previous owner could have adjusted (slid) the switch (it has slotted holes) to compensate. The lock connects to the switch via a metal rod, and you might now be pulling against that.

 

From when he got the car it was quite hard to get it out of the lock position, so that could well be the problem. The car was restored not that many miles before he collected it at a shop in california I think, and already it seems to have lost a few teeth so the starter is very hard to engage, the clutch has gone as it was fitted with no free play, oh and the horns aren't correct, and don't work. So all in it seems we need to tidy a few loose ends !

Will we need to pull the column, or can we attack it in situ?

 

You can get to the switch from under the dash. You may need to contort yourself a bit, call it your time of aerobic exercise!

 

Hi again, stripped the colum down now, following Jim Shea's? instructions I think. The only issue I have now is the little rack, is connected to the rod and I need to seperate it to reassemble. I can't figure it out. Does anyone have a quick fix for this?. I thought about punching the sector out, reassembling then punching it back in. If thats not a good idea, can the rack be unhooked from the top or am I looking at more work?

Cheers again for any help on this.

 

Had another look today, and I can't see any other options besides the possibiility of punching out the sector, as mentioned above, or having to remove the colum. Is column removal a difficult and long procedure, or am I worrying about nothing?

 

possibly had a brain wave !

perhaps I could get the sector in the correct position for the first tooth of the gear shaft and then push the parts back together, trial and error could result in success, after all the sector did rotate off the shaft in the first place. Will give it a try tomorrow and report back with the good/bad news.

 

The trial error method mentioned above was a success. I just need to put the White plastic shroud on the lower part if the column and after 3 of 4 attempts it slotted in perfectly with the both space on the rack correctly lined up with the tooth !! I was one happy bunny. Now just need to sort out the lack of warning lights, assuming they should light when you turn on the ignition?