I have a 80 corvette with tilt steering. There is a lot of play in section where the tilt arm is. Can this be fixed? I can move it side to side and up and down. is it supose to have a tight fit, no play?  

Our steering column guy says that most likely the four bolts that are under the tilt mechanism are just loose.  They can usually be tightened with a little bit of Loctite.  If it has been loose for a long time, the aluminum hub might be damaged, and sometimes even the steel tube that goes all the way down gets torn and must either be welded or replaced.

I have watched him tighten those bolts and it looked like a fairly straightforward job, with the only special tool being a steering wheel puller.

Larry

Ed Zachary...
The bolts that hold the upper part to the lower part are loose....they tend to loosen over time on just about ANY tilt wheel, but GMs are really bad. Ya gotta get the wheel off, and pull the turn sig switch up far enough to get to the bolts. It takes a small socket, too, but I can't remember the size off hand.
You will also need to lock the telescopic part of the column to get it apart, and back together.
If you do a search on the subject here, you'll find a few threads explaining how exactly to do that...it gets a little complicated to explain, but it's really not all that hard to actually do.