Changing a 36 steering box for a 37

The column shift on the left side of the steering wheel was great for street racing, which I did a lot of during the '50's. The shift pattern is upside down, 1st gear is up, 2nd gear is down, makes for real quick shifts. of course you have to be careful speed shifting, a mistake will blow a trans.
I doubt the left hand shift added to the birth rate, a shortened shift lever, which was common in the '40's-50's probably had more of a contributing factor. :cool:
I can clearly recall more than one girl going for a wild ride, especially with no floor shift in the way, in my '36 before I met my wife to be in 1955.
 
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I got everything disassembled, the only thing left is to get the worm off the 36 shaft. Debating whether to press it off or just slice it down the side relieve the pressure. I have a real nice 37 steering wheel but once I got the horn button out, I realized the 36 button is probably bigger in diameter. I’ll probably JB weld the cracks sand and paint the wheel.
 
Bondo works well to repair cracks in a Ford steering wheel. I repaired a '36 Banjo wheel using Bondo, painted the wheel then put a leather cover on it.
 

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36coupe said:
I got everything disassembled, the only thing left is to get the worm off the 36 shaft. Debating whether to press it off or just slice it down the side relieve the pressure. I have a real nice 37 steering wheel but once I got the horn button out, I realized the 36 button is probably bigger in diameter. I’ll probably JB weld the cracks sand and paint the wheel.
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I would press that worm off the '36 shaft. There were some previous posts on pressing worm gears on or off shafts, if you do a search you should find them. One post by NealinCa and another by me.
You could use your '37 steering wheel if you find a '37 horn button, light switch rod. Or use your '35 steering wheel & horn button, light switch rod by repairing cracks in wheel with PC-7, JB Weld, or some other good quality two part epoxies.
 
The 37 worm gear came off relatively easy. The steering shaft was cut off 2” above the box. Applied pressure with my press and then heated the worm with a heat gun and it started moving and took hardly any pressure to finish the job. My press is short so I’m going to crib it up with 4x4s to give me an extra 12” in height and I should be able to fit the 36 shaft in. Very interesting the way it has the main spline and then a series of shallower splines that make the interference fit.
 

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if you raise you're press to accommodate the long shaft, be very careful, it can bend easy. my press is to big to raise up so i made these tools to do the job in the vise using a good 2 jaw puller for both on and off procedures. in this photo i am in the press as i had a cut off shaft like you, but normally in the vice you need the aluminum block to hold it, a chunk of heavy steel with a hole thru to pull from, and your little tool that goes in the shaft
 

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You really need to be careful that the steering shaft does not get bent when pressing the '37 worm gear in place. If either the steering shaft or the horn/light switch rod gets bent, the headlights could get turned on or off whenever the steering wheel is turned
 
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