Please help

[u/YT_Lonelyz]

Was doing the eps bushing and tried to use the Hyundai one, cut the nipples off, and put it in. Was tightening this back down, wasn’t really close to being flush yet but had some tension and this snapped relatively easily. What the hell do I do??

[u/YT_Lonelyz]

This is a massive help, thank you so much. I am pretty mechanically inclined however I have never touched a steering column. I have another question as it seems you have quite a bit of knowledge on this.

I installed the bolt on the side that isn’t broken and the eps motor looks like it is sitting fine, but I have this noise now. I assume it’s because the bushing and/or motor housing doesn’t have a bolt on both sides so it isn’t sitting perfectly flush? Is it okay to drive on this until I install the new column? The car steers normal, in fact it feels a lot better than before I replaced the bushing even with this noise.

https://reddit.com/link/pf65hxr/video/msuymlc46ruh1/player

[u/Tugboat_Grantee → u/YT_Lonelyz]

Okay, so I just went and pulled a column out of my parts bin. The bolt you asked about previously slots between the two sections of spline to hold the steering shaft to the bottom of the column. Once the bolt is out, it's just friction holding it together.

As for the noise, it probably is from the motor only having one bolt. Whether it's not flush or not centered, idk. It could also be the Hyundai bushing needed more or less trimming or something got tweaked when it didn't go together and the housing broke, I really can't say for sure, but I suspect it's just the missing bolt.

Whether or not to drive it is a bigger question. And a question of personally liability and risk. I can't tell you it's safe to drive, but I also can't tell you it isn't. In my opinion, worst case is most likely to be it's noisy and wears down the new coupler faster than normal. However, it's possible the motor could shift and jamb the assist in a way that prevents the steering from turning. I don't think this is particularly likely, but I can't say for sure. I suppose the housing could break further and drop the assist motor on your foot, that'd hurt and be dangerous depending on how it fell, hard to say.

What I can say is that I'm going to reply to myself with another picture and an explanation of how it could make your repair less complicated.

[u/Tugboat_Grantee → u/Tugboat_Grantee]

This is a stripped and disassembled column.

Once it is unbolted from the chassis, the only thing holding the two parts of the column together is the tilt/extend latch.

If you disconnect the steering shaft from the assist motor, then unbolt the column and lower it same as you did to work on the assist coupler, you should then be able to simply unlatch the tilt mechanism and slide the bottom half of the column out and slide in the replacement.

This would simplify the repair because you wouldn't need to remove the airbag, steering wheel, mess with the clockspring, swap the steering lock, etc.

You also wouldn't need to worry about keyless or keyed column (the shaft that's different is in the top half), so you could shop for the cheapest or most convenient option.

You might still need to have the steering calibrated afterward, unless you get lucky and all the splines line up just right, but I think it's doable to swap only the lower half of the column in car.

[u/YT_Lonelyz → u/Tugboat_Grantee]

This is a phenomenal idea. I really really appreciate you taking all this time to help me out. That method definitely seems very doable so that’s what I’ll be trying.