How not to do it: shoe orientation in steering box coupler

[Dakota]

I have been fighting some excessive play in my steering system since I got my Challenger back on the road recently. 

My steering box received a Stage 3 upgrade from Firm Feel back in 2015, then sat in a box or on the K member until a little while ago.   While the gear box did need a slight lash adjustment, the big culprit turned out to be the coupler pod that connects the steering column to the gear box.  Although the orientation of the metal shoes is shown in most diagrams of the pod, I managed to put them in turned 90 degrees with the spring clip on the end of the shaft.  Given the steering looseness, I was getting ready to pull the gear box and send it back to Firm Feel but fortunately I was able to talk a friend into providing a 2nd set of eyes to make sure the problem was correctly diagnosed.    He quickly identified the column connection to the coupler as being loose.  After loosening the column at that dash and firewall and separating the coupler, it was pretty obvious what was wrong. 

I'm not proud of this mistake,, but hopefully someone else can learn from it. 

The wrong way:

[Dakota]

The correct orientation:

[Chryco Psycho]

Simple mistake , I found the same issue with my 68 Cuda back in 77