[Classics Fan]

You never have to move the steering shaft to work with header bolts or headers. You should ALWAYS remove the motor mount cross bolt and simply raise the engine up with a padded floor jack. 5 minute job.

NOW you tell me! Next time. I’m committed to pulling the column now because of the bearing falling apart. I found a NOS replacement on eBay.

 

[armyadarkness]

There's no exact science. It's an easy an common task to remove the column, for many jobs on the car. It's not hard to do.

That being said, you may have better luck with the engine mount.