88 silverado steering wheel loose?

the bearings are gone in the steering column......with a truck this old I would reccomend you run down to your favorite salvage yard and grab a whole new column to put in.....it will be cheaper than paying a mechanic with the proper tools to replace the bearings and who knows what else.....you sound like a handy guy if you got the steering wheel that far apart.....so you shouldn't have too much trouble replacing the column on your own......

i can read what your saying two different ways.

1. steering wheel itself is loose.

go to a salvage yard and get a new column. cost about $75 dollars where i'm at. takes about an hour to pull old one and hour to put new one in.

2.steering is loose.

had an 83 silverado once. would go down the road and hard to keep between the lines. pop the hood to give yourself some light. look under the truck where the steering box bolts to the frame. where the bolts go through the frame, the frame had peeled back causing the steering box to be loose. kind of like to much torque just pulled the nuts right through the frame. i've been told this was common on the older silverados and blazers. i found some 1 in scrap and used it to fix holes. i can send pics

There are 4 bolts at the very bottom of the tilt wheel assembly. difficult to get to but is a common problem for them to get loose. The entire upper part of the stearing column has to come apart and specialty tools needed for the job. Lots of small parts. If you've never done the job before I would take it to a shop. You can do dammage that will cost you more money later if you don't know what you're doing in there.

I only charge 75 dollars to repair those kind of columns so I'm sure you can find a local shop that will do the same.

The answers above sound like they know what they're talking about. The dealer fix is too expensive, but a junkyard replacement may soon have the same problems you have now. So I would find a small independent garage that works on a lot of similar chevy vehicles and knows the problem because they've fixed it many times before. They will rebuild your steering column.

http://www.iatn.net/shopfinder/

If it is the tilt bolts, you can avoid this in the future by not letting the steering wheel snap up when you release the tilt. Cushion it with one and and ease it up as you release.

Go to a junk yard and get a new column, easy to fix, common problem. the bearings inside the column are junk.

Could be in the steering column. You say its lifted, check all the steering components, if all is good maybe go with a steering stabilizer.

it will probably be easiest to replace the entire column. just start calling junk yards, youll be able to get one there.

Have it towed. It sounds unsafe to drive.