My power tilt came to a grinding halt yesterday ...the kind with a grrrnching sound anyway I looked on the forum since I remembered seeing a post on the subject before anyway I was able to repair the problem and took a couple of pictures since I could not find any procedures in the factory repair manual.

The first step is to remove the clam shell around the steering column which is held in place by 3 phillips screws, two on the bottom and one on the face which is pictured (you will have to turn the wheel 90 degreees to the right to remove the screw)

 

next remove the 3 screws that hold the cover plate in place and you will see the worm and worm wheel

the problem was that the worm wheel was not centered on the worm the only area of contact was the edges and it ground the edges and slipped therefore my fix was to place to washers behind the wheel and one on top (washers cost 0.27 each from lowes hardware) to center and maintain the wheel in the correct position put it all back together and voila it works great

 

worm and worm wheel

 

this is the wheel which I removed using two paper clips with the tips bent.

 

this is the washer 0.27 from lowes I used two behind the wheel and one on top to maintain centering of the worm and worm wheel

 

reassembled and working like a charm !!

 

good job! personally i would have been way to lazy to do this job. it's a good thing for me my tilt steering hasn't gone out.

 

I don't have this problem but just wanted to say thanks for spending a few minutes and adding to our knowledge base. I may need it someday!

 

yeah, me neither, hope I never do! Makes me wonder, though - what would cause that little ring gear to get misaligned? The first couple pix don't show any evidence of anybody taking it apart before - no broken spacers were found inside the gearcase, I presume?

Yikes, have we discovered an actual assembly mistake in a Lexus?

BTW, good fix! The washers look like the ones that go in garden hoses, yesno?

 

Excellent write up. Thanks for the info. Geess, this SURRRRRRRRRRE would go good in a Tech article section......(cough), (cough). What do you moderators think?

 

I'm not sure if the washers are the type used in garden hoses, they are made of a compressed fibrous material. The main thing I was looking for was to make sure it would fit around the spindle.
What all would be involved in developing the tech/repair/how-to section a lot us have digital cameras and I have no problem with taking pictures of any and all repairs/modifications that are done in order to help out other members, but this has been suggested before

 

C_ire, awesome fix! It would have cost you hundreds of dollars at the dealership because their mentality over there is: If it's broke, don't fix it, replace it. For 27 cents, you saved big time!

 

C_irie, thanks a bunch on the article!!

I recently have this reoccurring problem and tonight I was able to do exactly what your article demostrated!! Some reason the blue plastic gear does wobble, and when it does, it doesn't allow the mechanical lowering of the steering column. Slipping occurs. I'm glad the gear teeth were not stripped.

Again, thanks. If it happens in the future, I'll just manually lower the column and disconnect the power option. I figure it'll last several years w/o any more problems.

Duc

 

extremely useful info...good job!!

 

Dude, this is soooo helpful to me now. My tilt steering problem surfaced a few months ago for me. It'll give me something to do now. Thanks C_irie~!