Well first of all board at work and fed up with the rain seeing as the car has now sat there for nearly 2 months and has only been out once But on the plus side looking forward to a track day at Aintree in October!

My question is how can I tell what type of steering column I have as I am interested in changing the current steering wheel for a detachable one so I will need to fit a new boss any ideas the car is an 88 Westfield and I think that it is using Mk2 escort components but don’t know for certain.

I would of thought that you woulld be using a mk2 escort column aswell, unless it's a Westy one.

You have to take your steering wheel off and have a look at the setup underneath, then you have to look at the fixings for the QR.

hth
Steve

As above if you take the wheel off you will be able to see what the end of the upper steering shaft looks like and take some measurements.

Your options will be std boss kit and wheel or fit quick realease like a wilwood (Rally Design have various sizes etc listed which will help spec up the right one). IIRC wilwwods are welded onto the shaft. Most then seem to fix to wheel with the 3 stud QH pattern. Once you know that you can select wheel with QH stud pattern pre drilled or get one with no drillings.

Only other point to note - on the std 6 bolt patterns i believe there are 2 formats for the hole centres. My wheel was same as the momo pattern, i think mountney uses the other. Ive used the 6 hole type with a snap off kit. The holes in wheel and snap off kit are the same. I therefore used a momo boss to fasten it all to the steering shaft (the boss actually looks like it may be universal to cater for both stud patterns).

The supplier should be able to recommend a decent package once you know the sizes etc of the steering shaft. Mac#1 often stock various types at good prices.

[Edited on 27/7/07 by DarrenW]

Mk2 Escort is splined and Sierra is hexagon. Most of the quick release mechanisms I've seen are weld on systems, the one we fitted to a friend's car 5 years ago was from Demon Tweeks and worked well. It had a ring behind the boss which pulled back to release and was very firm. It cost him £70 and included the boss for the wheel with the standard 6 bolt fitting like Mountney. I bet they are a lot more now.

didn't they use a rover column at that time???