Hey there Brian, welcome back. I was wondering where you were. Nope, still screwing with the boat. Lots of problems this year. I'll get it done, then it's in the water until November. That is why it has to be all squared away properly. What happened with the HEI? Did it work or did you get a new one? That steering part is called the 'rag joint'. It is a flexible coupling with a big rubber gasket 'rag' to suppress vibrations. It is not covered. In later years they did provide a plastic sleeve to protect it. See that plastic nut above it? Just above that there is the column lower bearing. It gets wet and dirty, eventually the bearings fail, and it is made of unobtanium. If you ever have a LOT of time on your hands, and feel the column needs a freshening up, you can dis-assemble it and fix that lower bearing with new balls. Mine was so bad and missing so many bearing balls I pirated some from a parts column. The oil leak may be the steering box input shaft, or more likely, one or both hoses. De-grease and find out what is exactly leaking. Hoses are easy. The end shaft seal is fixable but the box will need to come off the frame for that. Do you have the 'deluxe' steering wheel? If so, it is normal to break like that. In fact it was a factory recall. Few survived and fewer survived un-broken. I used a Formula wheel from a Trans Am on mine. If I am wrong, show a pic and I can maybe help identify it better. I can barely even find a picture of the deluxe one. It has a horn button on each spoke, and the cool Firebird center cap. See this thread: deluxe steering wheel