Steering Wheel Flew Apart
 

Ordered and received my new steering gear box from Ames. Also ordered a new rag joint. Got everything put back together and my steering wheel is a quarter turn off. I checked the center to stop turn ratio-same for both sides. The rag joint on the old box appeared to have been beat on (previous owner) so my assumption is that it wasn’t clocked correctly when installed, hence the reason for my off position now.

My dumbass way of thinking was to remove the steering wheel and reinstall it on center……

Went to pull the steering wheel off (Grant wood) and it just flew off as the nut was past the last thread. Stuff went everywhere. My assumption (again) was that I would need my puller to remove the steering wheel. Nope.
My question is: Do do the steering wheels on 1968 Firebirds come off that easily and are they spring loaded?

I've needed a puller for every factory steering wheel I've removed - which admittedly isn't a ton.

thankfully it happened in the garage and not on a test run!

Finally got it sorted out. A lot of “backyard engineering” went in to adapting this Grant steering wheel to work from previous owner. After I figured out their washers and shim sequence, it went back together. Can’t take it on a test run because we are having a pre-hurricane (Erin) monsoon. At least it hasn’t flooded here yet.