Helix Steering Column

[Hampshire]

Anyone familiar with their products?

Looking to use their plain, non-tilt column. It can use the stock (vintage) steering wheel and I'll have turn signals built in.

All links are them:

http://www.helixsuspension.com/produ...ering-columns/

http://www.vintagepartsusa.com/catal...hifter-Columns

[mr48chev]

That is the one that everyone warns folks to stay from as there are pages upon pages of threads on the net by people who have had trouble with them.

The Hoffman group (google them) spends all of their money on flashy advertising rather than quality of product.

[Hampshire]

.... I remember reading the posts about the problems with certain brands of tilt wheels. I' m doing a non tilt, but by this afternoon, I was pretty convinced not to buy anything from them - and their column was too short, anyway

Trying to keep my vintage look in my 49. Talked to Ididit today - very helpful. I'm going to look at one of their plain columns ( with turn signals) and see about adapting a 54-55 steering wheel. They gave a name of a dealer who may be able to help with this.....Initially looked trying to find a 54-55 column- may still do that.

[67GMCkid]

I know the feeling Hampshire, about a month ago I was banging my head off the wall trying to do the same thing. I wanted a vintage A/T steering column with turn signals. I found a few that I thought may fit the bill on the local craigslist but getting anyone to take a measurement and give it over the phone or sending a few more pictures was a losing battle and I wasn't about to drive a hundred miles to find out it was to short ect ,,
One night I got to thinking I still had a few 57-59 Ferd car columns that had the style/look I was looking for so I went searching the garage and couldn't find a one of them in that era but I did find this one old Dodge I forgot all about saving a few years back..

It should work perfectly. At this time it is the exact same length as the still to long truck column. the tube is the exact same is/os diameter as is the steering rod, I will take the bearing from the top of the original truck column and use it in the bottom of this one saving the expense of the column saver kit.. The hardest part will be finding out if I can hog enough material from the 47-53 steering wheel hub to cover the hub on the column hub????????? Heck I may even try using the 3 speed shifter handle on it..

[_Ogre]

if you want non-tilt with stock steering wheel just shorten the oem column
wack it off and find a bearing that will fit the shaft and the outside housing
the housing can be split, peened over the bearing and clamped with a hose clamp
it's not a high speed application, most any mount/clamp will work

[Hampshire]

if you want non-tilt with stock steering wheel just shorten the oem column wack it off and find a bearing that will fit the shaft and the outside housing the housing can be split, peened over the bearing and clamped with a hose clamp it's not a high speed application, most any mount/clamp will work

Done that already - complete with grease zerk...it's connected to my rack & pinion steering. Don't have a complete photo of the steering but you can see what I have in the lower right corner of this pic...



...the 3/4" DD shaft below the DD joint you can see is attached to the frame via two Hiem joints.

So...what I've been trying to do is a steering column with integral turn signals (like a 54-on) that is also anchored to the firewall (with a floor mount) instead of floating - as it is now. Even with the anchoring of the two heim joints to the frame, the steering column moves around a bit when I hit bumps. Anyway, to stabilize it, I got this idea to use either an Ididit " Universal Classic Straight Steering Column" with a floor mount or adapt a floor mount to a 54-55 column.

The truck is great...just getting to the first 1k on it and now have a short list of "improvements"...(translation: I don't have room/time/money/permission to start another...)