I'd appreciate some urgent advice! After many years I'm finally getting my Challenger finished by a shop due to health and time issues. They've fitted the Power Steering box and the column is about 2 inches too short!

After a lot of looking at before and after photos, I believe that the only cause must be the shear pins. I was very careful when rebuilding the column many years ago but I think I found the 'smoking gun' picture from that time showing where the shear pins should be (I didn't realise at the time that you should actually see the white plastic but from looking online now I think you should).

I thought if the pins were sheared the shaft would slide in and out easily, but again, I guess not (I pulled on it).
It's the original column and I was driving the car before disassembly, so the column must have moved after I removed it, maybe the pins were already sheared.

Anyway - what to do?!
I know the options are basically either just pull the shaft out and assemble as usual (the car will be safe to drive), or remove and disassemble the column and try to use some nylon screws or melt some plastic in there.

Obviously the first option is easier and cheaper, but I'd appreciate all input - is there any downside to this? Could the shaft move within the coupler and want to pull out of it (I think no, gravity is against it) or more possibly want to slide further into the coupler (but the coupler would stop it sliding too far anyway)?

Thanks very much!

Many couplers use a small pin to prevent the assembly from separation. But, it's a small pin, probably there mainly to prevent separation while the column is out of the vehicle. I wouldn't trust it to prevent separation while driving.

If, your shaft is loose enough for it to bottom out in the coupler body, it's loose enough to not cause any problems.

My take, replace the pins with nylon screws

Aluminum pop rivets work well. They are soft enough to shear in the event of a crash.

For what its worth, I don't believe the shaft can pull far enough to separate without some major body damage on the car. At the plastic shear pins, the outer shaft has to move outward at least 4" (closer to 6" if I remember correctly) before the inner and outer parts can separate.

Your only concern would be if it clasped too easily, which probably won't be an issue. Once everything is in place, the bottom sort of floats, there is no up or down pressure. For the column to clasp in a crash, the column crushes the perforated outer shell of the column between the steering wheel and the floor mount so the sheer pins would break and the inner shaft would slide farther into the outer shaft. Before those shafts can slid inside each other, the outer column housing has to crush, or the steering box has to move towards the firewall. In either event, the sheer pins won't make much difference weather they were previously broken or not.

I suspect that while the column was out of the car, it got dropped on the bottom end which is what sheered the pins, otherwise the outer housing of the column would have been crushed.

Back when we ran the stock bodied Mopars on our local dirt track, we would pop the sheer pins on the column and pull the shafts apart another 3" so we could mount the the wheel and the column closer to the driver and still connect to the steering box. This allowed easier steering without having the power steering connected (a closer wheel gave the driver better leverage). I had one car that got crashed bad enough for the column to pull out of the lower connector at the steering box, even with the sheer pins broken and the column stretched out 3 more inches, the column at the sheer pins did not separate. On that car, the front frame rail got pulled away from the trans crossmember almost 6", rust issues were also involved.

Those plastic pins were there to "set" the column length to proper length.
Allowed factory to install columns easier, with out compromising their safety function.

Back in the day there was a kit. Primer and a glue. What you did was make sure the shaft was correct and not 180 off. Mark the length and there normally was witness marks or you can compare the plastic on the shaft to the holes in the outer shaft and mark the length. Then you primed the areas and then applied the adhesive and slid the shafts together to the marked length and let it cure. This kit is not available and if you do find one it most likely will be dried out and junk. What I do is get a quality Loctite primer activator with a tube of quality super glue. That's about all the original kit was. All you are doing is priming and gluing the plastic together.

I wonder the same, is there really any reason to bother putting anything in there?

I used an aluminum bolt or a hot glue gun. My concern is the ujoint pulling apart if there is nothing in the shear pin holes and the tabs on the ujoint cover are junk as usual.

I used some nylon screws I picked up at the local hardware store.

There isn't enough room for it to pull apart when everything is together. You might get a little bit of a rattle with the pins sheared but it isn't a safety issue since the shaft will still collapse in an accident. My Duster had the pins sheared and it worked fine. There wasn't anyway for the shaft to come apart so I just drove it.

There are no ‘pins’ in any column, the holes are there to shoot the liquid nylon in between the two pieces so it won’t rattle, they serve no other function. The nylon is still in there so don’t worry about it moving around

Right. I posted the simple fix above a few posts.

Excellent information so far, thanks very much. It makes sense that there are no actual "pins", just a hole for the nylon to be injected (I heard somewhere there are grooves on the shaft for the nylon to flow around?). So as mentioned, maybe the nylon is still in there and just the entry bit of plastic fell out.

But as mentioned the column is shortened per the photos. It appears about 2 inches too short to reach the proper coupler position.
I decided to take the column back out of the car since it was quick and easy, so it is in my garage. I measured the overall length of the shaft and it's 38 1/4 inches. I read somewhere the normal length is 40 3/4 inches so that would make sense
But the inner shaft does not seem to want to move at all! I had a quick go using a hose clamp on the bottom of the shaft and tapping with a hammer. It was on pretty tight but the clip slipped without the steering shaft lengthening. How tight should this be? It shouldn't be rusted in as I drove the car for years (at the correct length) then removed the column to rebuild it and it has been inside ever since.

Any thoughts as to my next move? I'd rather not disassemble the entire column again but I will if necessary.
Thanks again

You had a power steering box put in. What is previously power, or was it manual? The lengths are different for PS vs. manual steering. I just don't remember which is which.

Yes, but the power column was shorter than the manual column.

Two different column lengths and two different ends from power to non power, power is shorter and splines are smaller on coupler.

The new steering box is a standard dimension PS box (it’s a firm Feel unit replacing the original PS box), and it’s the original (rebuilt) PS column. Coupled with the measured length, it seems conclusive to me that the shaft length has changed.

Take it down to nothing but the shaft, put bottom part in vise, attach a slide hammer to the top nut and pull on it till it’s the right length. Only simple option. I would do this every time I wanted a standard box column, then I’d weld the end. A wreck with the force that would be needed to drive the column into your body, no worry you’ll be dead anyway from that impact.

In theory I could do the first bit without disassembling further because I have access to the top threaded portion and also the bottom of the shaft. Not sure if I might damage anything if I did that, in theory I shouldn't as far as I can think about it. Again, if necessary I'd disassemble but just thinking about it. Then comes the main question, whether to 'set' the length or not. That may be answered by how much force it takes to move the shaft and how tight it is after that..........

What have you got to lose? It’s already wrong. One other thing, have you got the column bracket that attaches under the dash on right?