Here’s a curiosity. This cover with eight bolts is located over the steering column, and four of the bolts also hold the column support bracket underneath. I thought there would be an opening under it, but no, nothing at all. What do you suppose is the purpose of it, what were they thinking at the time?
I looked in the parts catalogue but could not identify anything that might be it.
If it was for strength in the scuttle area, it is deficient, for that area is dimpled upwards, I suppose from someone pushing up on the steering wheel getting in and out.
Body color on top but only primer underneath incidentally.
It was to stiffen the area where the steering column mount was… also on MKIVS. I haven’t seen any where the firewall was distorted at that point.
Perhaps a PO of this one had fat legs or something.
There is about a 1/4" gap on the left hand side here, 1/8" on the right, 1/4" on the top.
I thought maybe there should have been a second column support on the front 4 holes, but apparently not?
Thinking about it, another possible cause of that dimpling could be that somebody at some time disconnected the forward end of the steering column from the chassis mounting, and allowed it to tip down. That would cause the dimple. Possibly to remove the inner shaft that controlled the manual distributor advance.
