Here's a question for all you compatability experts! I want to replace the steering column on my 79 Caballero and have a chance to buy an 83 Monte Carlo unit, will it fit without any modification? A lot of interchangability with 78 and up units.

Yes the columns are pretty much the same, however does your Elky have the wiper switch on the dash, the 83 column will have the wiper switch on the signal lever. You'd have to decide where you want the wiper switch and wire it accordingly.

I guess the 83 column will line up with all the attaching holes just the washer switch is an issue? I have the washer switch on the dash in the 79. Is this a matter of rewiring the switch from the dash to the column? I have an interior from a 84 El Camino in my garage that I am going to use. I guess I should check and see if the switch is there or not. When I install the new dash the switch will be gone. I will probably be forced to move it to the column if I use the new interior dash.

It's been a week, dunno how much further you got over this week. I've done several column swaps but there's a caveat attached to each one. The first was a column from an '88 Cutlass into my '83 Bu wagon. I did that one so long ago that I'd forgotten that it likely already had the wiper/washer switch on the column instead of in the dash. But when I swapped the columns, I also installed the wiper/washer from the '88 into the 'Bu. This required adding one wire to the dash harness under the column because the later delay wiper/washer required it. Then I had to add the extra wire to the firewall connector, and then I had to modify the original wiper/washer harness of the '83 Bu because the '88 wiper/washer motor assy uses a different connector. Being an electrical type, it didn't take me long to figger these things out, though 8)

The 2nd swap was with my '79 Elky. I replaced its original dash with that from the '88 Cutlass, and also went through the whole Cutlass wiring harness. This required changing all the terminals on the end of the '88 harness to the earlier 1/4" spade types used on the '79, since I had no intention of replacing the '79's original engine compartment harness. So the new dash was already properly wired for a column-mounted wiper/washer switch. The column I put into the '79 was from an '86 442 so it was already lacking the column shifter, which I don't need since my '79 has a floor-shifted 3-speed manual tranny.

So I know that the columns will bolt into place with no problem at all, either at the engine compartment or in the cabin. The wiring harnesses will also plug together with the single exception of the wiper/washer harness, which you will note, from the column, has more wires than your existing column connector. The wire colors are the same; so you'll find your new column has more wires of a different color than your present dash harness does. I frankly don't know whether you'll be able to move the existing dash wiper/washer wires down to the column but you can try. Just match up the same color wires with those on the column. It may be that the existing dash wiper/washer harness connector's terminals are even the same as those that you need to put into the column's matching connector. If so, you can easily remove these terminals from the existing connector using a large straightened paper clip; look inside the terminal, figger out where the small locking tang is that keeps the terminal inside the connector, and push the paper clip into that area to bend the locking tang back while tugging gently on the wire to pull it from the back side of the connector. Then make sure that locking tang is bent IN, not out.... and test-fit the terminal into the column's mating connector body. Once yer sure that the terminal will fit, THEN carefully bend the locking tang back out (about a 30 degree angle is right) and push the terminal back home.

If you find that you need to lengthen the wires of your existing dash harness in order to get them down to the column connector, I strongly suggest that you go to a Yarde and snip off the required wires from a junk car, including getting the whole connector body with its terminals. Then splice them to your existing wires behind the dash. It's best to actually solder these and insulate them with heatshrink rather than using electrical tape; it'll be much neater and cleaner and you'll never hafta worry bout the tape unraveling, nor worry about wires corroding inside wire nuts (the usual way that most folks do this kinda thing).