Steering column won't go back in....

[Supervinnie40]

I'm in the process of putting my new steering rack back in. And it is in (except for one bolt lol). Everything is connected and screwed into place. Now time to reconnect the steering column with the steering rack.

But.... I can't get it back in.

As I read on this forum, I had to undo a bolt and it would slide off. Well, in fact it was more like: undo a bolt and I could hammer it off.... But that was partly due to the steering rack hanging loose at the time.

Now I'm trying to put the steering column back over the steering rack and put the bolt back in. But it won't fit. It simply won't slide on. At one point it would kinda stick to it after pushing really hard. But even a gentle tap from the hammer wouldn't move it further over the pointy bit.

I'm at this point:

But I can't even get it to slide over the pointy bit as far as the one in the picture.