I'm having this exact same problem with my '02. Thieves had been paying attention and the one night I forgot to check all doors were locked they tried to steal my car. Broke the whole lock cylinder off the column. I bought a used part to go back on, but my column has collapsed. I'm trying to figure out what section it is now, any updates to this info guys?

 

There isn't much information on how to pull the steering column back out, and I'm struggling with the same thing right now on my 98 gs400. In the process of swapping my dashboard to a black dash, I had to drop the column and when putting it back I noticed it was collapsed since the bolts did not line up. I have an 01 gs300 that I'm using as the parts car for the interior swap and when trying to use the steering column from that car, the same thing happened. I am now stuck with two collapsed steering columns and genuinely lost and confused as to where to go from here. Any help would be very appreciated.

 

what did you end up doing?

 

It's been a bit since then, but if I remember correctly what I did was bolt the steering column back to the shaft and it took a LOT of effort pulling on it until I got it to finally pull back out. I was not gentle whatsoever and felt like something was going to break, but it did eventually pull back out without breaking anything. Hope this helps

 

thank you for the quick reply

 

just gave it 6 good tugs and got it lined back up thank you so much man

 

Very glad I could help, and I hope this helps others who face this same issue as time goes on

 

When I did my '98 LS400, I had the opposite happen. When I replaced the ignition switch, I just dropped the column and left it attached to the rack. I had to push the column towards the firewall to get it to line up.