Retrofit Steering Column

[dagr8tim]

I know this has been asked before, but I don't remember the exact answer. I've been looking for a smaller wheel for my 75 CJ and came across this for $25. It's out of an 87 Cherokee.

I know I read somewhere about retrofitting a cherokee lower steering shaft to a CJ (and I have a lower shaft in the garage), but does anyone think it would be less than a major mod to retrofit this?

 

[IOPort51]

I can't speak for the 75 but my 77 was a walk in the park. show me a picture of what you have in the jeep now, I don't remember it as being a GM column.

 

[dagr8tim]

I can't speak for the 75 but my 77 was a walk in the park. show me a picture of what you have in the jeep now, I don't remember it as being a GM column.

I've got the truck Steering Wheel & Column.

One of the thoughts is to get rid of the chest spear column and get a modern collapsible steering column.

Somebody told me to find a tilt CJ7 column, but for $25 I figured this was worth a shot.

 

[jdarg]

75 is a different animal than a 77. The floor is shaped differently and thus the pedals are all shorter than the 76+ ones.

Most folks swap to the pedal assembly from a 76+ CJ or YJ in order to use a GM column, which is essentially what an XJ column is.

You'll have to shorten those 76+ pedals, some holes won't line up, you need to cut a bigger hole in the dash, and the downstream steering linkage won't just bolt up.

I'd suggest trying to get everything - from steering box to the horn button - from the same donor CJ to make this mo' easy on yourself if at all possible.

earlycj5.net has a dedicated 72-75 CJ5 forum that is probably the best source of info for your Jeep. Old threads there will cover this swap in great detail so go check it out. Not knocking this forum but most folks here only speak 76 and up, and assume CJs are all like theirs, and will unintentionally steer you the wrong way sometimes. 72-75 intermediates are the real b@st@rd children of the CJs.

Another option is shortening your bus column or changing the angle, if you want to keep that old school vibe. That's way easier than swapping because that column is so darn simple inside it. You can get repro wheels and upper bearings, and Advance Adapters makes the unobtainium lower bearings for $25 or so, so it is possible to get it back to like new condition.

 

[johnnyreb]

cool column. just need some low back buckets and an 8 track player.
Sorry just giving you a hard time. I like the old school thing.

 

[billyocup]

I put a GM column in my 75. The column is very similar to what you have except that mine was tilt. You can see what I did here:http://www.jeep-cj.com/forums/f98/bills-75-cj5-ground-up-rebuild-9190/

It was a major pain because you have to modify the pedal bracket to hold the steering column and also modify the dash and the escutcheon plate at the dash that the column goes through.

It's doable, but I'm not sure if I would have tried it if the Jeep hadn't been already completely apart.

Good Luck - Bill

 

[Sam5038]

My column in my 64' M38A1 is from a 79' Firebird.

 

[thiswontbetooexpensive]

Different Year CJ, but I swapped out a tilt column from a 1986? Cherokee into my 1980 CJ5 . Don't have my seats in yet, maybe this weekend...looks like I have more room already! Everything bolted right up and plugged up. Just a little work on the intermediate shaft to make it work.

It is maroon and my Jeep is blue, but it does say Jeep on the horn. Need to do some changes in wiring to get the floor dimmer swith changed to the column switch and get the wipers hooked up to the column switch as well. That doesn't seem to be too terrible to work out. Everything else plugged and bolted right up. I didn't have a key, but $20? and got that swapped out too in about 15 minutes.

Good luck with yours!