When I originally assembled the steering shafts, I tapped them together lightly as was mentioned above. When I had to disassemble them when I put in power steering, they were difficult to get apart - there was a little rust when they finally came apart. No big hammering. I just put a LARGE washer on the end with the steering wheel and tapped with a hammer to get the upper shaft out. When I reassembled, I used grease, not oil, when I put the steering shafts together.