70 Wagoneer Steering Column Boot and Bottom Bearing

[RayW]

In rebuilding my steering column, I found what is imo a better replacement boot for the bell coupler than the Crown replacement. In the attached image, the boot on the left is the one I removed from my column. I don’t know if it’s the original boot, but it could be as the rest of the Wagoneer is pretty original. The boot in the middle is the replacement from eBay, its application is 61-64 Chevy big car like an Impala. They are about $10 on eBay. It’s virtually identical to the old boot, right down to the spring retainer. The boot on the right is the Crown piece which is made for a double-D steering shaft. Even after trimming the Crown for a round shaft, it didn’t fit or look that great. Has anyone found a replacement for the plastic lower steering column bearing as shown on the right in the pic? What years use this same column, ‘70-down? My Wagoneer is a 350/TH400 with Saginaw power steering. BTW, I replaced the leaking steering box with one from a low mileage 2005 Grand Cherokee. Was an easy bolt in with the borgeson o-ring-to-flare conversion parts and lares rag joint. I also did the same conversion to my 71 LeMans and it worked great. Does anyone sell a reproduction of the steering column bezel? I found a local guy to rechrome mine, but it would be nice if a reproduction were available. What years used this bezel? Thanks.

[Yeller]

I’ve not found anyone that reproduces that plastic bezel. Mine is broken, didn’t realize they were originally 1 piece.