Broken steering - ouch!

Sorry if this should be posted in the 'between the seats', I can move it if necessary.

Last night, when pulling in front of my friend's house, I went take a wide left turn and heard a gnarly crunching/crackling sound from the steering column. It sounded like thin metal or more like plastic breaking.

Regardless, my steering wheel now raises and lowers like a screw when turned.

More than about a 1/4 turn CCW, and I bottom out on the bucket that holds the turn signal, and I haven't tried going more than about 3/4 of a turn CW for fear of unscrewing the shaft.

I'm going to call AAA and tow it to a shop - are there any thoughts on where the failure happened and what I might be getting into?

I'm a little concerned about parts availability on this one.

Thanks in advance!

The steering shaft is part of the box. It doesn't connect to an input shaft on the box.. It is the input shaft. For this to happen, something jammed/failed and won't move, forcing the shaft to move instead.
If you look up steering box pix here, you'll see how the work.

Thanks.  

If I'm understanding correctly, for the shaft to be rising and falling like this, it is most likely a failure inside the steering box itself?

As always - thank you FCC, and to the VV community at large.

Progress:

I was able to pull the box & column from inside the vehicle using Tim's play-by-play on this post: https://vintage-vans.forumotion.com/t36455-steering-column?highlight=Steering+box  (thanks Tim!)

The only real hang up I had was
1) the bolt above the pitman arm spun free once I broke the nut loose.  I had to get a second wrench to secure the bolt while I worked off the nut - would've been a lot easier if I had a 1" socket since there is only a few degrees of movement there.  

2) getting the pitman arm off was a PITA since it slid 95% off and hit the clutch arm.  After 15 minutes of wiggling and cussing, I finally loosened the clutch arm a bit and got enough clearance.  

Once I got it out, I saw the problem.  The entire bottom of the box had blown out.  There were bearings and a cap lying in a puddle of grease on the shelf below.  

Off to Red Head to see what they can do.

Took the steering box back to Red Head, and looks the worm gear was bent.
I was able to grab a box from another member here, and the worm was salvageable.

Got the unit back this morning, and I'll put it back in the van this weekend.


If anyone has a need for a steering box with a bunk worm, send me a message.