Steering coupler removal from worm shaft

Is it possible to slide the steering coupler up all the way off the splined worm shaft without pulling the column? I can pull it up off the lower splined section and it's held up on the second section. But perhaps the coupler won't move that far up the column?

It seems to me this was possible back in the day to quickly center the steering wheel, etc.

Somehow the coupler was put on at least past the first splined section without aligning the coupler center tick mark with the missing spline on the shaft, so the coupler is now stuck on halfway and I'm hoping to avoid column removal.
Author: cuda341