ok so the other night i was on my way home and i was stopped at a stop sign. i went to turn my wheel left and go but something snapped and my steering wheel spun around freely not moving the front wheels at all.

i got the rack removed but im having a little trouble getting the column out, also i still cant find what broke. anyone have a writeup for this procedure?

also anyone ever have this happen to them.

 

good thing it didnt happen while you where driving

 

I just changed mine out a few days ago, let me go edit and upload the pics...

 

Alrighty, do you already have the rack completely off? If so then you should have the steering shaft unbolted and no longer connected to the rack. If not, start by removing the steering wheel (it will give you more room to work, plus you have to do it later anyway), then go under the dash and remove the black cover from the steering shaft, then look down and unbolt the joint that connects the steering rack and column.

After you get the wheel off you need to remove the plastic pieces that cover the ignition and whiper / turn signal arms. There are 3 screws on the bottom you need to remove before you start trying to take that off. Once it's off unplug all 5 plugs from behind the whiper / turn signal arm thingy. There are 2 screws holding this on that you should see pretty easily when sitting in the drivers seat. When you take that off things should look pretty much like this:


Now if you can you can just unplug the ignition harness from the fuse box, however I have those wires all tapped into with alarm / remote start wires, so I had to remove the ignition from the column while in the car. To do this I took the dremel and basically turned the bolts into screws. This is what they looked like when done(red makes where I cut):


When you have the igntion disconnected you can finally get to unbolting the column. There are 6 bolts holding it on. 4 at the upper section and 2 down lower. I circled each one in green.


Once you've done that it should come right out. There might be some little things I forgot... like disconnecting the battery, I did, but dont know if it's a must. Hope this helps.