re 1962 bird date of manufacture 16B - how can you tell if the steering column is fixed?
i heard some early 62 were fixed. mine won't move, however the transmission and engine are out.

According to Mileposts some very early '62's had the Swing Away Steering Wheel as an option but it was made standard early in the production run.

You should be able to look under the dash and find the mechanism (its pretty simple so don't look for anything to complicated). When the shift lever is moved into park there is an "arm" on the column that will hit up against a lever that unlocks the steering wheel from the driving position. Also you will see the column is mounted onto a 'U' channel that it about one foot long. The columns slides along this channel as it swings away.

If you have these and the wheel will not swing away you need to look at the adjustments you can make to the locking mechanism. Also the 'U' channel faces up and can collect a lot of crud that could prevent the mechanism from moving.

All these components can be pretty easily unbolted, removed, cleaned and lubricated.