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<\/a>Picking up where we last left, things were looking pretty good on the engine side of the firewall after a healthy amount of grinding and metal finish work.<\/p>\nThe bulk of the work that went into the firewall was covered in the post before this<\/a>. But, one area I said I\u2019d dive a little bit deeper into was how I crafted the lower mount for my Ididit steering column.<\/p>\n If you guys remember from my un-boxing post<\/a> Ididit supplied a very awesome steering column and installation kit for the project. As nice as the column looked on my kitchen island, that couldn\u2019t be it\u2019s permanent home.<\/p>\n The 1947-54 Ididit Chevy Truck Tilt Column shift kit comes with both an under dash mount<\/a> and a 2 1\/2\u2033 drop mount<\/a>.<\/p>\n I started in the way you see above, before switching to the method below which looked significantly better.<\/p>\n Using metal left over from the floor repairs I cut out a quick rectangle to fill the factory pass through. I then bored that piece of sheet metal out to accept some 2.75\u2033 ID round tube.<\/p>\n I slid the combination over the steering column then clamped it into the firewall. My ultimate plan was to mimic the basic floor mount Ididit supplied below.<\/p>\n If my firewall wasn\u2019t so different from factory that piece would have bolted to it. Affixed with two bolts the column would have then been clamped to it providing two mounting points. The upper, which would support most of the load, while the lower mount keeps things in place.<\/p>\n Again, great solution if your firewall is in ship shape.<\/p>\n That all got cleaned up as you\u2019ll see in a few paragraphs below this one.<\/p>\n The round tube creates quite a nice look on the engine side of the firewall while providing built-in support cabin side. I debated cutting the tube flush but I left a little lip because, personally, I thought it looked better.<\/p>\n The tube was cut in half on the interior side so the clamp would still work to keep things mounted solid.<\/p>\n After spending so much time working with sheet metal I\u2019ve become pretty comfortable not blowing holes in my work. But I still have not been able to \u2018stack dimes\u2019 like the rest of the internet. One day\u2026<\/p>\n Through the magic of internet we\u2019re able to go from rough metal work to rough filler work in a few bytes. In reality the above transition was many more hours than I care to count.<\/p>\n After metal finishing the firewall to the best of my ability, I hit it with some two part epoxy primer in a can. Once the primer dried the welds were covered in fiberglass filler. The waterproof fiberglass filler was then followed with standard polyester filler.<\/p>\n The final (well final for now) product is exactly what I wanted. A column pass through shouldn\u2019t be a focal point, and here it isn\u2019t. However it also doesn\u2019t look like an afterthought.<\/p>\n Can\u2019t wait to finish blocking it out and see it painted\u2026 once I get there of course.<\/p>\n Before I blocked out the outside of the firewall I did clean up the inside and floor. I used the same epoxy primer I did on the firewall, followed by Tremclad and rubberized undercoating.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a concourse type repair, but because I do plan to carpet the floor some day I put most of my hours into the opposite side of the firewall.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think it turned out all that bad and more importantly it\u2019s solid and rust free. Finally!<\/p>\n With the cab ready for mock up the next steps were pretty obvious. Take delivery of the motor and call a few friends over to lift the cab onto the chassis.<\/p>\n Putting the cab in it\u2019s place would allow me to continue mocking up the steering system in its entirety, save for the steering wheel.<\/p>\n I know, I know, the photo above jumps forward in time very<\/em> significantly. Don\u2019t worry I\u2019ll provide an update on the motor, where those wheels came from, and my clearly aftermarket intake manifold in a future post.<\/p>\n For now let\u2019s just focus on rounding out the steering.<\/p>\n Typically this is where people run into all manner of clearance issues. These issues can be resolved by running the shaft out and around the header but I really didn\u2019t want to get into any of that.<\/p>\n Thanks to rather low profile Hooker manifolds, recommended by Andy at Performance Improvements<\/a>, I managed to completely avoid all that hassle.<\/p>\n Two universal joints at either end \u2013one 1\u2033 to 3\/8\u2033 DD and another 3\/8\u2033 DD to 3\/8\u2033 30 spline\u2013, and some 3\/8\u2033 DD shaft got the job done.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>The two components combined make a pretty slick set up. Though I must admit that it took me more than one attempt to get it installed in a way that seemed natural.<\/p>\n<\/a>The orientation above also aligned the steering column perfectly with the OEM firewall pass through. In a standard configuration I\u2019m sure this would have been fine, but in my case, the OEM location was looking pretty sorry for itself.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>With some of the factory hole lost to the LS Fabrication<\/a> firewall fillers, and the rest lost to time and mother nature, something had to be done.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Ididit does offer solutions of their own to this problem<\/a>. Either the standard adjustable mount, or swivel mount, shown above. But I had some metal kicking around, and a bit of built up confidence, so I decided to fabricate something of my own.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>After a bit of fiddling and persuasion I was able to mock up a similar solution that could be welded in instead of bolted in. Don\u2019t worry all the welds, extra metal, rust and crud you see in the photos above.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>I zapped the round tube to the rectangle on my work bench before final test fit. Everything still looking as it should I burned it all together.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Remember what I said about cleaning up my work? I trimmed down all the unnecessary sheet metal overlap, blasted away the crud and seam sealed over the welds before coating the floor.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>One of the things I was heavily sweating about the steering installation was running the shaft between the column and steering box.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n