Today has been cleaning, tidying and reassembling the steering.
The 2 areas of the Miglia build that originally unsettled me were:
1) Stretching the gear lever.
Well, I worked around that by opting for the angled Spitfire lever, so no cutting and welding required.
2) Altering the steering column.
Again, I was worried about cutting-n-welding the column, so I had a think about other options and as the result of looking at what a few others on here have done, coupled with an idea from a Herald owner (who advised me of the design of the collapsible Triumph column!) I settled upon a solution that needs no cutting or welding at all!!!
My Solution
The collapsible design of the original Vitesse column is achieved by the top section being hollow and the bottom section fitting inside it, with a cut-out in the top section and a flat filed in the bottom section, all held together with a chunky great clamp!
That design allows the column to collapse in case of a head-on collision by the inner shaft sliding up inside the outer one.
But as far as we're concerned, it also means that if we un-do that clamp we can 'shrink' the length of the column by simply sliding the lower shaft further into the upper one!
So once disassembled and the new length decided upon with a bit of trial and error I filed a new 'flat' on the inner shaft in it's new location:
And reassembled it with the original clamp.
Bobs your uncle, shortened without any cutting or welding
So while (as some of you will have figured out) that top section is no longer collapsible, it is now connected to the rack with an intermediary shaft (splined steering shaft from Car Builder Solutions!), and 2 new Steering Column UJ's to link them all together. Which is an accepted alternative column design if I did have to follow IVA guidelines! So a nice result and some peace of mind to boot
Here's it all is fitted in place, along with the pillow-block bearing on the bulkhead which makes for a very nice feel through the wheel!
Happy!