CJ 5 steering column swap.

[rushpowersystems]

OK I am 6'2" and 250 LB so an 80 JC5 was probably a dumb purchase, but hey I love to tinker. I don’t know if this has been covered or not (did a search and found nothing) but a pre-air bag, early 90's XJ/MJ steering column is a real easy swap.

I grabbed a tilt column from a 92', it will bolt to the upper column mount bracket, the turn wiring is the same as many 70's and up CJ’s so that may be a plug and play or at least it is easy to rewire. You can grab the control module and use the intermittent wiper on the column and if you find one with cruse control it is a great way to kick on a radiator mister or....what the hell a nos switch! Anyway here is the changes that are needed, cut off the lower mounting flange on the 92 column, cut 1" off the bottom of the shaft and grind a new groove for the steering joint bolt. If your column has ignition in the column the plugs should be the same depending on the years, however I found that my brake pedal hit my IG switch, easy fix is to shim the column down at the fire wall about 1/8" or so. Oh you can also move the dimmer switch to the one in the column as well. Stay tuned photos will follow.

 

[baker9713]

that sounds like a very interesting swap

 

[rushpowersystems]

O.K. excuse the messy home shop, did not plan on going this deep into the new project, probably should have done this at my shop. Anyway, here are the photos.
1. Old column IG switch.

2. New column IG switch, both are a GM base so they should be interchangeable. A quick check in a wiring diagram will tell you.

3 Old column turn switch plug

4. New column turn switch plug. 99.9999% chance you will have a standard GM plug here, depending on the year of your vehicle of course.

5. Connection for column dimmer switch. Easy to modify your wiring to move the dimmer to the column

6. Difference in shaft original shaft about 1" shorter

7. How much needs to be cut off.

8. Cut a grove for the steering shaft bolt.

I just used a grinder to make the cut, easy could have done all this with a hacksaw and a Dremel. Now in photo #8 you can see the grind marks on the column tube, this the place the mounting flange was. I cheated here because I had my alternator bracket fabricator cut this with a plasma cutter. I am sure it could be done with hand tools or home power tools but on the other hand I would not think a machine shop would charge that much for this to be done.
more photos to follow later.

 

[CJ]

Excellent post! Thanks for documenting this!

 

[Old Dog]

Thanks for the info, could come in handy some day.

 

[BajaEdition]

Nice write up
I hope Cj adds it to the tech area as it shows some good work
Owning 2 CJs one a 5 and one a 6 I always need to see how others are doing such as this.

 

[CJ]

~~~ I hope Cj adds it to the tech area ~~~

I'd be happy to once I know the write up is finished.

 

[rushpowersystems]

Sorry, I have been very busy around here, we supply many custom high amp alternators for SEMA show vehicles and the show is coming up fast. I have the column installed but I was forced to back burner it until I get some orders out. Stay tuned.

 

[CJ]

No reason to be sorry at all! It is a great write-up! We all have 'real' lives...

 

[rushpowersystems]

Well sorry for my long delay on this, I have just been swamped with work. So here is where it is at now.

Now it’s a different ignition switch but only because it is a tilt, for the most part Jeep uses a GM column with one of two ignition switches depending on if it is a tilt or not. The plugs for the most part are universal. So if you go non-tilt to newer non-tilt you may just be a plug and play deal. However that negates the real advantage of this swap, the tilt column. Older switches have less ignition lines (ignition 1, ignition 2 and so on), if you add a lot of accessories you can power them off the additional ignition wire providing you get the wiring plug with the column, just be sure to check the wiring diagram to verify colors.

For the most part your column ignition switch should be interchangeable, keep in mind I am talking about going from late 70’s - mid 80’ to late 80’s - mid 90’s column. I did have a slight clearance problem with the brake pedal hitting the ignition switch but a minor adjustment to the switch fixed this.
The dimmer switch is a cake walk, just plug it in to the dimmer on the column, you will notice a 4th pin on the switch, don’t worry about it you will not need it.
Now the fun part, I used my stock wiper switch to control my aftermarket driving lights, the switch is designed to handle some high current so as long as you are using less than 4 lights or so you should be ok without a relay just be sure to run a new power wire to it and fuse it. Since the switch is a high / low I set it up to run 2 lights on at the low position and all 4 lights on at the high position. You will want to re route the factory wiper motor wire to the column switch. To take full advantage of the column wiper switch you really need a 4 wire wiper motor, they are a bolt in interchange, just need to wire it up. Keep in mind you need the wiper module from the XJ or you need to use relays for the motor, the switch is not designed to handle the amperage of the motor. Simply check the wiring diagram and you will see the wires you need to use.
As you probably notice I am not going into wiring colors here, Jeep did chance them over the years so I thought I would just leave you to look up if you decide to do the swap. However if the diagram makes not since to you just send me a note (Darren@rushps.com) telling me the year of your CJ and the year of the column.

old plug

new plug

Intermittent wiper control box

column installed

inside

New dimmer (light brown), just like the old dimmer next to it, top center pin is power in. two pins below it are high and low, 4th pin on bottom is not used.

ignition switch, notice how close the brake is (near the spring)

This is the factory wiring attached to the wiper module, you could just use relays here and it would work just fine. I used the 3 wire motor here and it will work o.k. but it is much better with the 4 wire motor. I wired the 3 motor to test the module during the time I was waiting for the 4 wire to arrive.

 

[rushpowersystems]

well it seems we (Rush Power Systems) are having some issues with our photo server, we were forced to relocate them on a different one, you can access the photos at Auto Electrical Forum