Steering wheel Adjustment Question - Shaft spline nut

For the first time since I have owned my 328 - purchased in '08 - , I decided I wanted to adjust the steering wheel, which I did but here's my question (eventually):

The big nut on the shaft where the splines enter the shaft, though snug, was NOT tight enough to lock the shaft/splines. The well-greased splines easily slid in/out after loosening the two bolts/nuts under the dash and moving the wheel up/down. SO...since I had never fooled with this before, I don't know if the sliding shaft/splines was by original design for the '89 or whether someone in the past adjusted the steering position and either intentionally or by mistake, failed to tighten the spline nut. There is no play in the system and frankly, it looks to me like perhaps it's supposed to be able to slide and the nut is there to simply reduce the amount of sliding clearance to the minimum necessary amount. But everything I have seen in the past talks about tightening that nut to lock the shaft/splines. There is nothing in the owners manual about this that I can find...

Is it supposed to be tight so that it cannot slide or is it supposed to be able to slide?

 

Well, mine seemed tight as far as putting a wrench on it but the splines still slide in/out. Shouldn't they be that way normally? That's my original question - seems to me like sliding in/out is what they are supposed to do. No? IOW, even though the nut is tight, have you tried moving the wheel up/down to see if the splines will slide? Maybe over the years the splines seize up due to old/lack of lube. Does anyone know how it worked on a new 3x8 - did the shaft splines slide or were they locked in position?

 

Thanks Steve (and RifleD), that's a double-plus good answer! It answers the question AND makes me happy that my supposition - that it was NOT originally "locked in place" but was meant to slide from the factory - was correct!