"What size of holes did you drill into the nut? "

I sized the holes to the wire (a piece of spring wire I straightened) so it would have a slight interference fit. What you see in the pic was my first try, I ended up placing two holes and wires on each side of the nut.

"how about a sintered bronze bushing as the basis for a new threaded piece?"

That would negate the 'inferred' safety feature of allowing the colum to collapse in the event of a collision.

"What I want to know is how you dropped the steering column at all."

Not that difficult, remove the knee panel, the four bolts that secure the column housing and persuade it off. Then again, my memory may be faint and I had also disconnected the shaft coupling since I intended to remove it completely from the car.

 

I remember removing the lower trim panel that exposed the entire column from the bottom and then I remove every thing I could find, so I thought. I remember looking at the connection at the fire wall knowing that too would eventually need to come apart, but until I got the top to budge no sense in messing with the that lower connection.

Do you recall when you pryed the column down were the bolts knurled in order to hold it in place? Like I said I just gave up didn't want to break something and end up having to buy a whole column because I was stupid.

 

I don't recall having to hold the backside of the fasteners to remove so I'll say they are secured. Two near the wheel are vertical, the two at the lower end are horizontal. Once all four are removed, drop the steering wheel end a bit and (can't recall if it's towards/away from firewall - easy to see, though) push/pull the assembly to slide lower bracket over bolts.

Then again, once I understood how the motor is secured to the column, I found I could easily remove the motor without dropping the column. Getting the cable to align with both the motor and the driven screw may be a bit tricky though. I think inserting one end of the cable into either end and 'bumping' the adjustment switch in order rotate the cable drive while assembling would probably work easily enough. The difficult part will be to get the cable inserted into a position that allows the position sensor to 'know' the extent limits. Since my spring wires just slipped over the screw threads when powered to either end I haven't yet delved into how the positioning sensor actually works - it may count from one end back to the other (easy, kind of like the side window reset procedure) or it may need to be centered during installation (difficult.)

 

I removed the instrument panel as well to get better access at the column securing bolts.

Thanks for the nut hole info. I will do this spring wire reinforcement too.