Weird one, but bought a tilt column to replace my non tilt column but there is nothing where the retaining nuts or whatever you call them where the screws that hold in the neutral safety switch are not there.....what to do? Anyone

 

For starters, what car is it for?
Manual or automatic?
Column shift or floor shift?


On some years an auto with floor shift the switch is on the column and some years it's on the shifter.
Manual transmissions had the switch on the clutch if it had one at all.

 

Some columns have the sheet metal screws just threaded into the column tube itself with no back-up nut.

 

71 Cutlass with a 4 speed, switch is on column but the tilt colum I picked up as the slot for the switch but not the retainers that the current non-tilt has. Identical besides that. The fasteners are kinda of like cage nuts secured to the column and little sheet metal screws secrure it.........

 

The neutral switch should be on the clutch pedal. (I think purple wires) The switch on the column should be for the backup lights. You may have a column out of a 69 or 70 where I think the backup switch was on the reverse linkage. I do know that 71 with an automatic was the year they moved the switch from the shifter to the column.

You may have to fabricate something.

 

Agreed.

I remember something like that on my LeMans. The holes where the Switch mounted were too large for the screws. There were some metal pieces that went into the column. The screws popped into those pieces. Why not poke around an Ace hardware (if you have one nearby) to see what they have? As long as its outer diameter is slightly more than the hole at the base of the column, and the inner diameter works with the screws, it doesn't really matter. Perhaps a wall anchor would work.

 

Thats probably it, yes it is the switch for the reverse lights... more than likely the column is from an earlier year than.

 

Another thing I was thinking about is how do you tell the difference between a column for an auto with a floor shift and a 4-speed column? I think the back drive linkage is different, but I'm not sure how.

Andy, do you have any idea what the tilt column came out of?