| Turns out my steering column was the source of my few degrees of play. The rubber biscuit was cracked in the original one and the u-joint was very loose. The car has 120,000 miles and i was surprised the rubber was cracked being 120k and a 96. I do live in the desert and everything dry rots quicker out here. Thanks to inspiration from Bernie via email i was able to tackle the entire job in an afternoon despite some issues along the way. There are two sources of play on the column itself: The rubber bushing and the u-joint. I'm not talking about the lower u-joint (though it can contribute to play and should be replaced separately if needed). The column itself has a different u-joint and cannot be replaced by itself, the entire column shaft must be replaced. The entire column with tube is no longer available from Nissan so you have to buy the inner column and install into your tube if you want brand new u-joint and bushing. I would purchase the o-ring and snap ring also. Parts Here Removal and installation from the car is very straightforward. Remove steering wheel, remove lower interior panel, remove two lower HVAC ducts, unplug about 6-9 harnesses. Jack up car and remove lower u-joint from rack and column. Unbolt 3 bolts holding the column into the firewall behind the pedals below the dash. Unbolt two bolts holding the column to the dash under the instrument cluster. Pull entire unit through the firewall into the interior and out. Issue: The inner column is collapsible due to safety reasons for frontal impact. If you remove yours from the tube, you'll see a point on the column where a lower portion fits into the upper portion. It is fixated in place by two injection molded nylon plugs which are designed to shear in a frontal accident allowing the column to collapse. This part brand new from Nissan includes the upper and lower sections but they are NOT nylon plugged together. They were free sliding. I called courtesy Nissan and they had no clue. After some research and dead ends, i decided to use some medium strength epoxy and epoxied it together matching the length of the old one. I figured this was safer than welding in the event of a frontal impact. Disclaimer: I am not responsible for your column not collapsing in an accident if you use this method. Proceed at your own risk. Once the epoxy was cured, i swapped the o-ring, lubed up the 2 bearings, installed the new column into the tube, snap ring in place and reinstalled in the car. The response is back to how it was when i got the car with 43,000 miles back in 2003. The play is now negligible as the only factory installed steering component remaining is the rack. What a difference! Email me if you need more details on the swap.
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