peanut butter

Hey guys I'm at my wits end here. I pulled out the ignition key cylinder from my EF sedan to put in my CRX. Before I pulled the key cylinder out of my crx I tried to put the key cylinder back in the sedan to see how easy it would be. Well 4 hours later it still isn't back in. I can't for the life of me figure out how to put it back in. It should be really simple but with all this trouble I'm having, it's driving me nuts. I even took the ignition switch off the back to see if maybe it just wasn't aligned correctly but that didn't make a difference.

I have used the online crx manual which says to put the key to position 1 and then slide it back in after you press the pin. I did that and the cylinder slides into the lock body but won't go in all the way.

I got so pissed at it that I had to try something else. So i dusted some red chalk on the cylinder to see where it was hitting inside. It's hitting on the left side of the cylinder (the metal is shiny there now), but I can't figure out what/why it's not going in. I even filed off part of the metal on the side where it was hitting to maybe clearance it but it's still hitting on the same side.


Whats the trick to this thing?

prettylew

heres directly from my service manual for 91 civic

turn key to 0 and align lock cylinder with the lock body

turn the key almost to 1 and insert the lock cylinder until the pin touches the body

turn the key to the 1, push the pin and insert the lock body cylinder into the lock until the pin clicks into place

peanut butter

Yea that is the procedure I followed, its the same in the CRX manual. Step 1 I just held the cylinder in the air and turned to position 0, that step seems useless. Step 2 turn it almost to one and there is a slight catch in it, slide it in until pin touches the lock body. I did that also. That step might actually help with alignment of the cylinder and ignition switch.

Step three, turn to position 1, push in pin and slide rest of the way. I did that, it goes into the lock body but it never seats and the pin doesn't click. It simply won't go in any further. No amount of wiggling, pushing, pulling on that step got it to go in all the way.

It's catching up on the left side on the interior of the lock body.

As you can imagine after 4 hours of messing with it, going through those steps over and over, it's very frustrating. There's gotta be something else. This is simple.

prettylew

yea i have no idea what the problem is. that sucks

Spaceballsthelunchbox

Use a sewing needle and probe the inside of the plastic switch to make sure there aren't any bits left from the old cylinder lock. That happened to me, there was a small bit of metal in there and there was no way to make it fit again.
Hope it helps.

peanut butter

Thanks maxbore. I already bypassed that problem by taking the plastic switch (the ignition switch) off the back of the lock body, just to see if it made a difference but it made no difference.

It's obvious that something is a-miss but I haven't been able to figure it out yet. I can see where it is making contact on the lock body and on the lock cylinder itself but I don't really see any solution, its like trying to fit a square block in a round hole.

Spaceballsthelunchbox

Then it seems the sedan and the CRX use different ignition locks.
I just replaced the lock in my CRX and it was a 15 minute job.

peanut butter

No, it's not that. What I said in my first post is that I have been trying to put the key cylinder back in the sedan in which it came out of. I was doing it to test it out before I tore apart my crx lock cylinder.

Last night I was able to figure out what was wrong with the crx lock cylinder by looking at the mechanics of the sedan lock cylinder.....and I got it to brake loose so now its back to normal on the crx.

The sedan is still apart and still not going back together.

peanut butter

Just thought I would let you guys know because I randomly discovered this while flipping through the chiltons.

It says that on 1990 civics and wagons with automatic transmissions the lock cylinder is not removable. To fix it you have to replace the whole wheel lock/lock cylinder as one unit, sheer bolts and all!

Really wish I would have stumbled upon that BEFORE I did it.