I am trying to find a steering column to fit my '79. I know there are differences between early and late columns as far as mounting. But what about the overall length of the housing and the bearing dimensions. I have a complete shaft from a '79 4wd. Would I be able to swap it into an earlier column?

What is the difference in mounting between the early and late columns?
And, besides the NSS difference, will the turn signal switch connector work?

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason

 

I've been told that the columns differ in length between 2wd vs. 4wd, & manual vs. power. I think the only mounting difference is the trim piece at the base of the column as it goes through the dash.

 

what is wrong with your original column? what exactly are you trying to do ? The columns are the same from 73 thru 77 Wiring can and probablly will be different, make a diagram picture of it color coded of the orig turn siginal switch for the truck. 78 and 79 are the same. the differences of 4X2 and 4X4 is the shaft and will change between them. remove steering wheel and signal switch, snap ring on top of shaft and shaft will fall out the bottom. If you have cruise good luck with wires. I have a 4X2 in my 4X4 by changing out the shaft. 1979 will bolt in the 1973 but the trim to the dash and wires will be different. If I remember correctly I could never get the horn to work, had to get a button and mount it to the dash.

Good Luck

 

It has no column at all. The shaft I have is from a 79 F250 4wd. I've been able to find several 77 and older 2wd columns, but I want to know that I can make them work before I commit to pulling one out.

Thanks,
Jason

 

Go the the local wrecking yards and get one out of a 78 or 79, that would be your best bet, I'm in pa and could easily find multipal yards with lots on hand in 4X2 models. They are always on evil bay also. If you want it to look good and plug and play get the 78 79. 73 thru 77 will work with wire issues, will bolt up to dash with trim issues also.

 

Bumping and older thread due to it being the closest I could find to covering what I wanted to know...

I just started working on my new to me '74 supercab. It's an F-100 2wd.
It had some PO do a hack job on the wiring - possibly because of the fire it had in the wiring where it goes into the engine bay - just above the heater box.

I am in the middle of parting out a '79, 2wd long bed F-150 for a buddy and figured I'd grab his wiring harness and throw it in my truck.

Did that today - no big deal, and yes I made sure to grab his gauge cluster to use

In looking at what all the PO hacked on the wiring harness I noticed they cut the plug off the end of the wiring coming out of the steering column.

Which leads me to my question...

Would it be easier to put a plug back on that column and wire it up correctly, or easier to put the column from the '79 in my '74?

I looked at the columns and while they are slightly different cosmetically the only real issue I see to "bolting" it in is the mounting plate/gasket where it goes through the firewall is a slightly different shape. I noticed this just before I left the shop and I didn't have the time to see if this mounting plate could be swapped from column to column. Can this be done fairly easily? If so I'll just put the '79 column in my truck.

If not - does anybody have the pinouts for the plus coming out of the steering columns on the '74 vs. the '79?

Thanks!

 

Ok do you need the steering column when you are going from a manual steering to a power steering? I have a 74 F250 with manual steering an I am looking at getting a power steering setup from a 75 F100. Do I need the steering column to do the swap or will mine work just fine?

 

You would need the column the manual columns are longer then the power steering columns.
Armsstrongtruck for the horn in the 78-79 column you need to ground the yellow wire for the horn to work.In the 78-79 there are two wires for the horn and one needs to be grounded.