Why is my steering wheel crooked? (its not what you think) Options

[Jameel]

No, it's not crooked on its rotational axis. But rather, it's closer to the dash on the left side to the tune of 3/4". I'm not quite sure how I missed this over the past 2+ years, but I sat in the car today and, whoa, felt weird. I removed it and slipped it back over the splines and tightened the nut down just because. Obviously you can't cock it on the shaft to this extent. No accidents, hits, etc. I grab the wheel and wiggle, very solid in every direction. I don't know how this can even happen. Thoughts?

[Rob-O]

Actually safety.

In a frontal collision you don’t want the occupants of the vehicle to collide straight into the steering column. You want the mass of their body to be deflected if they hit a stationary object such as the steering wheel.

My guess? Engineers knew it was a small car with a small cockpit...and that people in the 70’s rarely wore seat belts. This was probably one way they could mitigate the damage done to the occupants. Id also guess this was done fairly late in the game, as in after crash testing was completed. Why do I think that? Well, have you ever tore apart a dash on a 914? Ever notice how on the back of the basketweave dash face there is a metal panel that the basketweave attaches to? That metal panel has cutouts for the switches and steering column and fresh air controls. If you put new basketweave on the metal panel and then trim it to fit that panel, the steering column won’t line up to the cutout. That tells me that initially the column and steering wheel were centered. But then they changed where the steering column was bolted to the frame of the car (it’s the piece that takes the four 6mm Allen head screws), moving it slightly to the left...but negated to make that change to the metal panel that fit over it.

I’ve never done it but I’ll bet that If you centered the steering column the metal panel that the basketweave adheres to would fit perfectly around the column.

Or I could be completely wrong!