Hello there. I'm new to the forums, and have just purchased a new to me 2009 HHR last month from a relative. I know the car was neglected by its past owners, and I'm slowly working to get the car back to tip top shape, and I'm tackling the intermediate steering shaft, because of the steering wheel play, and sure enough, the bottom U-Joint had lots of play in it. It took me a while of air hammering it off the rack and pinion shaft to get it moving, and once it go to the top, it stuck, because the shaft had no play to move around, and it was bound up, so I ended up cutting the old one inside the car, and it came off fine. Upon installing the new one, it was super tight, and really didn't want to move much, and I had to use to some percussive persuasion when installing the top pinch joint on the steering wheel spline shaft, to get it to slide on, after installing the lower joint, the problem is the firewall boot, which I CANNOT get installed. I've heard people say to install it before putting the shaft on the ends, but now I can't the new shaft off, so I don't think thats a viable option. What are some things I can do to try and get this boot installed?

 

Welcome to the site. Squeeze the two sides together, slide the top up into the hole and engage the seal, push in those sides and work the bottom around with a flat blade screw driver gently to help the seal tuck into the hole. You may need to do this twice, a little squirt of silicone spray helps lubricate the boot

 

That seems to be the method people have tried when they're installing the boot BEFORE they attach the shaft at both ends, but my problem is that I have both sides attached and can't seem to get either side unattached without causing damage to the new part. It seems the way the car is sitting, the shaft goes through the firewall at the upper half of the firewall hole, and its causing the top of the boot to get pinched between the shaft and the firewall hole, which isn't allowing the boot to squeeze in, or even move up and down, as the bottom portion of the boot is kinked up and won't move down the shaft towards the firewall, even after lubing it. Also, I've seen people use a pry bar against the upper shaft pinch joint to pry it off the spline shaft, but my steering spline shaft has a sensor box on it, maybe a steering angle sensor, and I can't pry against the plastic body of that or it will just crack.

 

Here's what it looks like with the inside flap pulled up and out of the way. You can see the lip that's supposed to go on the engine side of the firewall is positioned higher than the firewall hole itself, which makes it so I'd have to pull the whole boot down to even get the upper lip into the hole, but I can't get the boot to move much at all. My whole steering shaft isn't even centered with the hole in the firewall, its towards the top of the hole. Is there anything I can do to make the steering shaft move down?

 

Go for a drive around the block that might set the boot in a better position.
if not you will have to remove tge top yoke and reset the boot

 

Okay, I was able to hammer the new shaft back out again, and I'm going to try and reinstall the boot with the shaft disconnected

 

Got the boot on, by a maricle. I used some silicone lube on the splines of the steering wheel shaft and the intermediate shaft yoke to help it slide on better without having to hammer it on so much. This job was a real pain and I pray this new shaft will last a long time. Now to do the motor mount to fix the idle shaking.

 

Good work! The upper engine mount is much easier