I'm putting the lock cylinder from my old steering column into the new one and it's gettin caught. It goes in almost all the way, but it feels like it's hittin something solid at the end. It has to be in the number 1 position, right?

 

Anyone know what the problem is?

 

there is a pin that comes down..

look for it..

 

You need to make sure that the little metal stud on the inside is pressed down. I had the same problem, turns it that the stud was getting caught on the housing. Had to somehow push it down, then the cylinder slid into place.

 

yeah I figured that was the problem. There's a slanted part right before the hole but apparently the angle isn't smooth enough so it's getting caught on that. Like you said, I askes Raene and he gave me some advice. I'll paste it here in case anyone else ever needs help with this. I can't try getting the cylinder in again until tommorow though...

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Raene &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The pin, the pin... I remember that I had a heckuva time getting that in. The problem was that the taper on the cylinder shell wasn't smooth enough, so the pin was catching on the taper. You could hammer on the cylinder all you wanted but the pin wouldn't go in because it was digging into the metal. I believe what I did was to use something long and very thin - I think I used a safety pin or a sewing pin - to help press the lock cylinder pin upwards and into the cylinder body. It doesn't actually have to exert much force; you just want the sewing pin to be something the cylinder pin can slide along so that it doesn't hit that edge or lip on the taper that's catching it.

I hope that makes sense...

OK, let's have some fun with ASCII art...

=========
||||||||||||||||
=========
...U

Ignore the ... part, just using it for spacing...

So in this case the cylinder, represented above, gets in trouble like shown:

============
||||||||||||||||||||||
============
^^\U

The pin is hitting the slope, as seen. What I did was this:

==========
||||||||||||||||||
==========
^^\U________

The underlines are the pin.

HTH</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

So I managed to keep the pin down the whole time while I pushed the cylinder in, but it was still getting stuck on something. The part that sticks out on the cylinder on the opposite side of the pin looks like it might be the problem. Does anyone know what I'm talking about, and what I can do to get it in?

 

lol, ive become the expert at this, lol. I had to change mine 3 times, first one i got, it didnt turn off all the way, second one, after taking the keys out, it would still think they were in, so the doors would always chime, third one, just didnt fit.

alright, heres an easy way that i've found to do it, if you look on the side of the housing, youll see a black box with two wires, this is for the door chime, unscrew the one screw holding it on and then just pull it down off the housing. next, where you took that piece off, you'll see a small pin hole where the little button on that black box went in, remember this place. next, look through where the ignition lock cylinder slides in, and you'll see a brass piece down at the bottom, using a screwdriver, push this brass piece down, and slide a pin into that small pinhole i told u about at the same time. you should now be able to take the screwdriver out and the brass piece will stay there, since the pin in the hole is holding it. now you can slide the lock cylinder all the way in until it clicks into place, remove the pin from the pinhole and put the door chime button back on.
If you dont understand this, just IM me or something and ill try to explain better.

 

heres a pic to help ya


the pin hole is where the door chime switch was located. and "where pin goes in" is where the locking pin goes into. pretty much explains itself.

 

Okay, thanks a lot for the help man! I wasn't expecting a helpful response so soon. I'll try that tomorrow and let you know how it works.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by OldSchoolHatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Okay, thanks a lot for the help man! I wasn't expecting a helpful response so soon. I'll try that tomorrow and let you know how it works.</TD></TR></TABLE>

haha, yeah, ive done it so many times now, so im getting pretty good at it,
let me know how it goes

 

I tried doing all that and it didn't work. When you said to slide a small pin into the pinhole, did you mean that the hole should be open? When I pushed the brass piece in all the way it was covering the other side of the hole. I still managed to hold it in place though, and something's still stopping the cylinder from going all the way in. Any ideas? Are you sure that all the lock cylinders are compatible other models? I have a STD hatchback and the steering column is from a DX sedan. Please let me know whether or not you can think of anything else to try!

 

hmmm.... well , i was just over at a friends this weekend, and apparantly a 91 DX Auto has a different lock cylinder than a 89 CX 5-speed. I kinda figured it would cause of the neutral safety switch, but i tried anyways.
I was able to pull out and put back in the one from the CX easily, I just used the procedure i explained and it went in easily. but i found out on 90 and 91 auto's the lock cylinder doesnt seperate from the housing

 

Well I got the steering column from a 90 w/ standard trans and the lock cylinder did separate from the housing, so I don't know what the problem is with mine fitting in there. Can you help me with my question from before about the pinhole and sticking the pin in there?

 

alright, well when you puch the little brass piece down with the screwdriver from the inside of the lock cylinder, you should see it cover up the hole where the little door chime switch goes in, then you just use the pin and push it in through the hole, this will hold the little brass piece down without using the screwdriver inside, so when you have the piece held there, you'd just slide the lock cylinder in.

edit: what car is the donor lock cylinder from? year and model. and same with yours.

 

Yeah so I should use the hole that's covered, just find a way to jam the pin in at an angle right? That's what I did before and I managed to hold the piece in place. I have a 91 civic hatchback STD and the other one's a 90 civic sedan DX, both are standard transmissions- mine's a 4 speed.

 

yeah, thats right, sounds like you're straring to get the idea.
also, i just checked on honda automotive parts, they have the same lock cylinder, they're both listed as the same part number. so now i really have no idea why it wouldnt work. is the key in the "1" position? have you tried putting your original lock cylinder back in, just to see if it still goes in?

 

Yes, I did get it back into mine. Like I said before, I didn't have too much time to play around with it. I did everything that I was supposed to and it didn't go in, so I did something else because I'm very pressed for time in the shop at school. Tomorrow I'm gonna drive there so I can take the cylinder and the whole column home. Then I'll be able to spend some more time on it but I really don't know what could be the problem. If I still don't have any luck, do you think I should take it to the dealer? Would they be able to pop it in fairly cheap?

 

if you're gonna be taking it home, compare it to the other lock cylinder, according to honda automotive parts, they should be the same, although they could be wrong. If they look to be the same, i really have no idea what could be the problem. you could take it to the honda dealer i guess, if you have everything ready for them(steering column covers, steering wheel taken off...) it shouldnt be much of a problem. although if you're having trouble with it, it may take them a bit of time to do too. But before u do anything, i'd try compareing the two lock cylinders, just to see.

 

Yeah man, thanks for the advice again. I'll see what happens tomorrow and let ya know!

 

I finally got it in!! The flat metal piece that surrounds the pin was slightly bent up and it was getting caught even though I was pushing the pin down. Thanks again for the help.

 

Good to hear!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by raene &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

</TD></TR></TABLE>

I think this pretty much sums it up, haha

 

Haha, yeah. Unfortunately, I ran into another similar problem. The steering wheel won't go all the way back on. It's sticking out about a half inch further and there's a gap behind it now. I think it's because the circle piece that goes on right under the wheel is stopping it. The circle fits tightly on the plastic box with the control arms (lights, wipers) but when you push the whole thing in all the way, the circle piece won't go in as far as the rest of it. An edge is stopping it and it looks like it's supposed to, but why would the plastic box push in further? The same thing happened to my friend who took his steering wheel off to check something and couldn't get it back on all the way after, with the same sized gap. Can anyone tell me what the problem is?

 

alright, im not sure, but this is what im guessing happened.
when you take the steering wheel off, you'll see a little ring shaped thing with two little edges across from each other. these little edges will fit into little slots on the back of the steering wheel. Although this ring thing turns, so im guessing that the steering wheel and ring thing didnt line up.

 

Yeah, I checked that already and made sure those were lined up so that's not it. I studied it for a while and couldn't figure out what the problem was.

By the way, my friend that's having the same problem drove his car fine like that for a while. I don't think it affects how the steering wheel works too much, but I'd like to fix it.


Modified by OldSchoolHatch at 5:43 AM 6/7/2003