OK, don't laugh at me, I haven't done this before. When dropping the steering column on my '70 satellite...I've taken out the four bolts under the dash and the two on the oval shaped washer looking thing that attaches to the firewall and the column is now floating. I'm putting in a new dash so at this point my questions are these: 1.) The hole in the firewall looks to be round, not large enough for the whole column to be laid on the floor/dropped that far..so how do I "drop" it...do I have to get in the steering box and disconnect it at the knuckle and pull the whole column out or am I missing something? Also, 2.) Am I going to mess up anything where the automatic transmission shift connects? Thanks. Chris.

On the 70 Satellite,there are two bolts up near the dash,and then two more about half way to the fire wall.The two in the middle are easy to miss.Then on the fire wall you should have four more.With all these off you will have no trouble dropping it to the seat or floor.For your dash removal.

Check if you need to unplug your column wiring harness(es)

Just reread your post what I think you are doing wrong is ,the two you removed from the oval washer looking thing can stay in.But the four bolts behind them that go through the fire wall have to come out.

You know what? It was late last night when I was working on this (after my son got to bed) and I was pretty tired. Good suggestions, I think I remember thinking to myself that I needed to remove a few more bolts on the fire wall, looked in the engine compartment, got distracted and ended up pulling off the kick panels and thinking...what did I miss. I should have looked closer. But, I'm glad I asked. Thanks for the suggestions! Oh, what about the auto transmission? At one point the car seemed to drop into neutral (it has a column shift auto) when I was propping up the column before going to bed. Am I going to experience any disconnection with the tranny? Thanks again. Chris.

I did not have any trouble when I did mine,but only droped it to the bench seat.That was low enough to remove the dash just fine.