Asha'man

iTrader: (1)

Turns out that the steering wheel on my hardtop car had been spun around way beyond the normal range due to the broken steering rack, and I believe the ribbon cable assembly inside is broken. Has anyone cross referenced this part to any other Lexus models? I'm gonna try to go to the yard today and match it up with some ES's and maybe an LS and GS but would be nice to know if anyone else has had to do this before.

SC400slide

iTrader: (11)

If there is one that is compatible, I'll be all over it. I called the lexus dealership and they informed me that there were 6 available in the country to buy new and they were almost 500 bucks a pop. Needless to say, I bought one used.

Asha'man

iTrader: (1)

That's brutal. It's the kind of part that rarely goes bad in junkyard cars, though, so that's something, but the SC I got all my subframe parts off of isn't listed at the yard anymore so I think I'm out of luck there. No other SC's in the local yards right now so I'm gonna try to improvise.

The other thing is that I'm gonna have to splice and solder the airbag wires that go down the column, because they're integrated into the clockspring assembly and don't have a plug. Gotta love fixing unexpected stuff.

Asha'man

iTrader: (1)

I got a chance to drop by the junkyard today. Pulled the wheels off of a 2000 ES300, a 98 GS300, and a mid 2000's Camry but had no luck. I can pull a Toyota steering wheel in about two minutes flat so it wasn't a big deal. Then I stumbled on a '94 Camry and wondered if it would be more likely to have a similar clockspring due to the closeness in years. Pulled the wheel and sure enough, same unit! It was pretty crusty (like the rest of the car) so I found a much cleaner '95 Camry that had the key in the ignition so I could center the wheel before I pulled it. Sure enough, same clockspring unit, and much less crusty. I didn't get a chance yet to check continuity through the ribbon cable, but from all appearances it is the exact same part.

I doubt this will ever actually help anyone as these parts don't really go bad (I don't think?) but here it is anyway. I'll post pics later on, too.

t2d2

iTrader: (8)

Nice find!

On an only very slightly related note, has anyone had their clockspring be un-centered for no apparent reason? My turn signal defeats too easily when turning one direction and not easily enough going the other, but I feel like it's a fairly recent thing and I haven't had the steering wheel off in awhile. Or is there something else that would cause it and necessitate a new thread? My searches only turned up stuff about how to use turn signals.