Every old vehicle I have seen has the same arrangement for column bearings and all of them are awful in my humble opinion. The ball bearings run directly on the shaft, which wears, the retainers are flimsy, often housed in plastic and it's just plain bad engineering. Especially if you don't have power steering and the column sees a lot of force put on it.
I drove my new purchase (a 63 GMC) home and thought the steering was bad and as expected all the bearing components had long been left
behind on some stretch of road. So to stop this problem from re-curring I built my own steering column: Take about 4 feet of steel tubing (I used 4130 from an airpane parts supplier in 1 3/4" O.D. x 0.058" wall thickness, two 3/4" bore precision ball bearing, some 1" wide, .125" thick steel strip and two sturdy hose clamps. The bearings will slip onto the steering shaft and will be an easy push fit into the tube. The tube is cut to the right length and at each end two slots are cut with a hacksaw about 1/2" deep. This allows a clamp to compress the tube and hold the bearings in place. I made an intermediate support bracket which bolt right up to a convenient existing hole in the chassis rail. At the top end it is fastened to the column support using a cut-out section from the original column welded over the tube, so I can use the original mounting points. Now I have easily replaceable bearings that will probably last ten times as long and have no slop. The difference is amazing. Fitting the turnsignal and other junk takes a little ingenuity, but it can be done.
from the steel stip
