Add tilt to your EF.�����By Ben Ogle

Not having tilt sucks. My seat is quite a bit lower than stock so it felt like I was driving a bus. I got sick of having to look through the steering wheel to see so I set out to change the column. If you are a fortunate owner of a low model EF you probably don't have tilt either. And since you are reading this you probably want to get rid of the non-tilt action too. So on with it, eh?

Tilt column on top non-tilt on bottom. The tilt column is 12oz heavier.


Quite a few EF's came with tilt so finding a column is pretty easy and cheap. I got mine at a pull-your-own-shit junkyard for $10. I don't know what columns fit what cars so I just played it safe and pulled mine out of a sedan because that is what I have. I would be willing to bet that the CRX and hatch columns will work too but I haven't tried it.

If you are really cheap and or lazy you can just skip to the bottom for an easier solution.

Installing this is pretty easy. It took me about an hour total, and that is including the time I spent trying different washer combos to get it just the right height (more on that later). I had to lay upside down a couple of times, which sucks, but other than that the swap was easy.

Step 1: Take off your steering wheel. Pry out the little "H," then get a 19mm socket with a long extension and take off the big nut holding on your steering wheel.

Step 2: Take off your accessory block. First unplug the mess of wires from the back of it. Then unbolt the block itself. Its held on by 2 Phillips screws. Watch out. When done with that it should look like this:



Step 3: Unbolt the column. First I would unbolt the spline shaft from its little holder. You have to take the bolt all the way out. You will see it after you take off the little black plastic cover by your foot well. The bolt is circled in red:


Then take out the other 5 bolts/nuts. There are 4 right under the cluster:


And then there is one (the "pivot" bolt) a little further down the column:


Step 4: Pull that non-tilting bastard out. You are probably going to have to cut/unsnap a couple of clips. Watch out, tough stuff.

Step 5: Now you have to get the tumbler thing off the old column and onto the new one. This is easier than it looks. The stud looking things holding it on are really just your average 12mm (head) bolt but with no head. And they are swedged so they don't just unscrew. So, what I did was drill out the swedged part with an adequately sized drill bit. You do not have to drill all the way through the bolt, just the smashed part. After you get that part drilled out the rest is cake.


Just unscrew the old stud looking things, take the tumbler off, put it on your new column, and either reuse your old studs (if you didn't screw them up) or find some 12mm (head) bolts and use those. I used bolts because I have a lot laying around.

Step 6: Put the new column in. It is the reverse of the removal. Just make sure you get the spline in its holder and at least get the bolt in there hand tight before you bolt up the rest of the column.

Step 7: Go drive and enjoy being able to look over the steering wheel.

Step 8: Drink a beer.

Now if the column still isn't low enough (mine wasn't) you can put some washers in-between the column and the part of the car where the main 4 column bolts/nuts are. I used 2 lock washers (they are thick) on each bolt. This can also be used as a cheap substitute for the people who don't want to swap their columns. Take a look:
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