A3 Ignition Switch Replacement DIY w/ pictures

I wanted to contribute somehow, and even though I didn't do the write up, I wanted to give y'all some pictures. I say again, I didn’t create this, I’m just giving sight to what’s been said.

Stig got this from Vortex
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showflat.php?C...&PHPSESSID=

This is the write up for fixing the ignition switch by removing the whole steering column, very simple. No need for a gear puller or cutting of the collar. Hope this helps everyone looking to fix their ignition problems

Here is some symptoms of why you need your ignition switch changed.
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showflat.php?C...true#Post997483
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showflat.php?C...&PHPSESSID=

Here is what you need to buy, cheapest place I know of, www.rockauto.com Here is a picture of the item. 10 dollars with shipping. PN# 6N0905865

<font color="blue"> Here is what you will need
New Ignition switch PN# 6N0905865
10mm socket or wrench
5mm allen wrench
24mm socket
13mm socket and wrench
normal size and thing long Phillips screwdriver
normal flat head screwdriver </font>

Ok let's get started.

First get your wheels straight, steering wheel straight

Now, let's remove the ground from your battery. 10mm nut. (Get your radio code now if you want to be ready to turn it back on when you are done).


Here is your steering wheel!


Here is the steering wheel plastic cover . Man I don't know what to call these things! Two screws one on each side, then pull the two pieces apart.


Here is a picture of the underside of the knee protecting dash section (yeah that's the technical name). I believe there are 5 or 6 phillips screws, take em out and yank this part downwards.


Time to remove the airbag, now remember, you did take the ground off, there’s no power going to your bag right? Take these two allen bolts out (you don’t have to pull them all the way out). Then you will pull the air bag out slowly. (There is a wire you need to unplug to take it out fully).


Now I know what he meant when he was being extra careful, you’re holding your airbag in your hand! It’s not complicated, just pull it straight out, and you will be fine. Place the airbag somewhere to the side, looks sexy!

here is bag with plug off.


here is where I made my mark with my permanent marker. When you put your column back in, this will be a good place to guide yourself to where it should be. (your hands will start getting greased up with all the work you will be doing to get it in place, well that was me, so this mark may get rubbed out hehe)


Remove the second plug to the airbag, here behind the wheel (yellow and white). The other connectors will be taken off later.


Here is where you will remove your steering wheel. 24mm bolt, pretty shallow so be careful not to strip it. Pretty tight, and deep in so you will probably need an extension. Do what you need to break it loose. After this bolt is off, slowly with your hand holding the back of the wheel (to keep the clockspring intact and not falling out) pull the wheel off. The spring isn’t trying to bounce out, but just don’t let it fall out. Keeping the wheel horn side down is fine.


Wheel hornside down, chillin.


Here is your column with the turn signal, lights, wipers, etc etc. A couple screws to take out, and connectors. Right there in the middle is your adapter collar that everyone does the cut or pull to. We get to leave it alone.


Here are the connectors for your light stalk. Remove them with a pinch and pull.

Here are the connectors for your wiper stalk. Do the same. Remove all your connectors you can see.




Here are the three flat head screws and a Phillips to remove.


Here is the stalk being removed. The torx screw on the wiper stalk you won’t have to worry about. Nothing is holding it in, just pull it off also. I’d do a little wipey wipey on these things.




Here are all connectors off. Don’t worry, they are pretty straight forward of where they will go into again. The bend stays pretty well so they line up where they should.




There is your ignition, and behind the key, look. There is the ignition switch! If only that switch we could remove from here, but nope that screw is in an awkward position.
Let’s remove that connector, See that pale yella thing, that’s your switch!


Now it’s time to get this steering column out. We need to go under and pull some of the plastic covers so we have better access. Most of them come out with your fingers, you’ll see.

Here are the two I took off.


There is your nut and bolt you need to remove (bronze). Taking all the plastic covers off is good now because you are gonna have some weird angles to get the bolt off and back in.


13mm bolt and nut. Top of bolt I used my wrench to hold it, then I used my ratchet on the bottom, Then I popped the bolt out.


Shear bolt on column, he said it was hand tight, but I had to get a little grunt on it. Then it came out easily. I used my vise to put a grip on it. Putting it back in, I didn’t tighten it much.


Give it a nice tug, don’t worry, it’s gotta get off the teeth. steering column out. Should be a spring that was on the bottom of the column that hooked up where that bolt was. You’ll see it.


There is the freakin enemy! Look! See that screw, bad access, use your thin thin Phillips to get at this. You will be bending the column back and reaching in. Don’t worry so much about how you get at it, just get that screw out and pull that switch! I held it between my legs, upside down, pulling it up and me upside down screwing it out. It was a sight to behold


Replaced ignition switch, oh its so sweet. Get that screw in. If you compare the prongs, the old one had one missing? Not sure if it broke off and was the culprit, or it just wasn’t there. Eh What ever.


Ok now is the fun stuff. Getting it back in is what took me some time. It was getting dark too. I eventually started working in the dark, with a flash light. Most of the time you’re just going to feel it place itself back in.

You will be putting your replaced switch and shaft back in. To turn the shaft, you can put your key in the ignition and turn it.


Ok so put the shaft in, line it up to where you replace your shear bolt, slide it half way in. Look at the bottom, and if you see where you had your 13mm bolt lock the shaft in, you gotta do it again.

Now My shaft had a bit of a groove where the bolt was holding it, not sure if that’s for everyone but that was my guide to where it should line up again. If that isn’t lined up when you put it back in, you won’t be able to get that bolt back in.

This is where the frustration started. I couldn’t line it up correctly and had to keep pulling it out, then starting over. The teeth have to line up correctly, and there isn’t much space down there for you to get it in easily. Remember to place that spring back on the shaft too. That’s what makes it wiggle out and then start yourself over.

Get that bolt in, get that shear bolt back to where it was. Tighten that up. Boom now reinstall everything in reverse order. Do your diligence, make sure everything is hooked up correctly etc etc, then you won’t have to open it up again.
-put the connectors back in
-put the stalks back in
-screws back in
-steering wheel back in
-airbag back in

<font color="blue">
Steering wheel time. Hold the clock spring together, and keep that airbag connector at 0700 so it will fit in the plastic cover. I messed up here, and couldn’t remember where to put it in the teeth for the straight wheels (When taking the bolt off, I turned the wheel a bit, so it was offcenter) So just get it back where it should be, I’m maybe a couple teeth off, an my wheel just looks like its crooked. Doesn’t bother me so much.

Hook that airbag back up, put it in. close up your plastic covers, dash guards etc etc.

-Place your key in the ignition, on ON. THEN go to the battery and hook up your ground to your battery again. Yeah this is the paranoid you may get hit in the face with your airbag that worried me the whole time, but I made it with some prayer and laying on hands on the car. Hahaha

-Ok Turn the car on. Woo headlights working. No brakelight/headlight confusion.
The ignition now seems to have a stiffer turn to it? Is that because the switch? Who knows. But it’s not as loose as it used to be.

-Radio goes to safe, install your radio code. Check your papers call the dealer.
Once you turn the power back on afterward, the radio will display SAFE for a few moments and then show four zeros. Press the station preset button 1 to set the first digit. Press station preset 2 to set the second digit, etc. Once the code is correct, press and hold the right Seek button >> to enter.

Or For the 97 ("Deluxe" and "Premium"), 93-97:

1) Turn on the radio and press the MODE and SCAN button simultaneously and hold them down until "1000" appears in the display. Release the buttons!

CAUTION-Do not continue to hold the MODE & safe buttons after "1000" appears or press them again. This would enter the number "1000" as the input code number.

2) Use station buttons 1 to 4 to input the correct anti-theft code number. Use button 1 to input the first digit, button 2 for the second, and so on.

3) Once the anti-theft code is shown in the display, hold the MODE and SCAN buttons down until the word "safe" appears in the display. Release buttons! Soon afterward, a radio frequency will be displayed and the radio will be operational.

The 98 & 99 will display "safe" when turned on, then after about 3 seconds "1000" will be displayed.

This is per the Bentley Service Manual.
</font>

There you go guys. This is in accordance to all the posts I read, and help from Stig, Toronto Vento, Bookerdog, Rdkern, turbotone. Woo woo.

Nice wright-up. I added this to my favorite How-to list.

Wow...I now wish that i never have to replace that darn thing! ha ha. But it also showed me how to take off the steering wheel, which is something I have been curious about.

That's a great write up but I don't see the advantage of pulling the column over pulling the adapter sleeve. To each his own.

if you don't have the gear puller, want to make a quasi-puller I guess. That lip that you have to grip isn't that big, I'm glad I went for it this way. That's why I opted for it. Don't have a dremel either. Those were my main reasons for doing so.

Nice Work, and a great write-up! To anyone else who reads this and didn't follow the links, you don't have to necessarily remove the steering wheel column, but instead find way to remove the splined adapter collar (That'd be the thing with the knurled edge in the picture below)



You can try and find a puller or you can use a dremel to cut off the old one. Both of these ways require tools that you generally can't rent, but must buy instead. Kooya's write-up above can generally be described as the absolute budget method of replacing the ignition switch.

Once again, great writeup!

Excellent job - I couldn't do better myself!

I have to state up front that I am in no way connected with rockauto, but I have been impressed with their service and prices. Superquick shipping and cheap. Just purchased and installed 2 loaded remanufactured rear calipers for $67 + $50 core charge each. Impex wanted 125+60 each (also remanufactured and loaded).

FWIW, the $5 rockauto aftermarket ignition switch works perfectly so far. Hopefully it'll be the last one.

kooyajerms,

ty ty ty. Just finished this job on a '98 Cabrio (non TDI, my bad!). Without your pictures, I would have never attempted to do such a job, because I'm completely mechanically disinclined. I also left the steering wheel alone (including not messing with the airbags), and just undid the ujoint bolt at the base of the steering column, and the shearing bolt on the upper column. Pulled out the steering wheel column, and replaced the ignition switch. Brilliant....just simply brilliant. Thank you for mentoring me from afar. Cheers!

Thanks

for the very helpful write up. i replaced mine in hopes it resolves my multiple starter death syndrome. regardless, i appreciate you taking the time to provide this info. I never did find out what the "clock spring" ???

stay ain't working after the switch replacement

Not sure if this should be a different thread. I'm guessing, dare I say, hoping, some of you encountered similar issues after replacement.

First time I stuck the key in after installing the switch, all the dashboard lights and dials came on as expected, but, no power to the starter. After that just the clock and odomoter come on with the key in the off position - no power to any other dash items or signal/washer. If I turn to start those go away and no power to the starter. Crap!!! Not looking forward to weeks/months of electrical troubleshooting. Any ideas??

if your switch is not fully seated or you forgot to tighten the switch retaining screw it might explain the behaviour you see. Another option would be a faulty switch.

column popped out

got the electrical part resolved - just a short requiring a better rewire. restarted a few times drove it around a bit before I parked in driveway to put the rest of the interior trim stuff back on. then, while putting the last trim parts back on, I turn the wheel and boom the column popped out of the bottom piece and the wheel spun around. How the hell did it pop out when it was apparently connected properly - spring in, notch in the right place and steering wheel operating properly????

Wow! Thankfully it didn't happen on the road. Wonder why it would fall out. hope someone can get to this.


That bolt didn't fall out? From what I can remember, that might have been loose?

steering column was too short

This DIY worked great until I went to hook back up the universal to the bottom of the steering shaft. Evidently, I had shortened it somehow.
After I had lengthened it, it fit it nice and easy.
Thanks!!

This is actually a variation I found on the Vortex that took out the dissasembly of the steering wheel. It was easy and took ~ an hour. Thanks for all the pics and directions as it made life a lot easier!

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2532481

JAMTDI said:

This is actually a variation I found on the Vortex that took out the dissasembly of the steering wheel. It was easy and took ~ an hour. Thanks for all the pics and directions as it made life a lot easier!

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2532481

Click to expand...

I just did mine (96 B4) yesterday using this vwvortex writeup. It's so easy and you don't have to worry about pulling apart the steering wheel and messing with the airbag, etc. I have a 96 B4 and the procedure was exactly the same except for the gold round headed bolt that holds the column to the dash support. I was looking for this for a while until I realized that the B4 actually has a 6 mm allen bolt instead, so be prepared.

Also, I found that it wasn't necessary to lock the steering wheel. In fact, when it locks it does it in a position where the u-joint bolt is in a very awkward angle to get to. What I did is kept the key in for this step (batery disconnected!) and turned the wheel until this bolt seemed easy enough to get to (sideways). Just put a tick mark somewhere along the steering wheel so that when you put the column back in it's all aligned properly. You can always re-align it later anyway which is what I did.

I thought the hardest part was putting the column back in place. It helps to have someone pulling/pushing on the steering wheel while you are down there re-inserting this piece. Make sure you put that spring back in place and that you get enough insertion back in that sleeve. I was only able to get a good 3/4", which felt appropriate.

riofrio said:

I just did mine (96 B4) I have a 96 B4 and the procedure was exactly the same except for the gold round headed bolt that holds the column to the dash support. I was looking for this for a while until I realized that the B4 actually has a 6 mm allen bolt instead, so be prepared.

Click to expand...

B4s DO have the shear bolt from the factory. Somebody has been in there before you and replaced it.

Chris Bell said:

B4s DO have the shear bolt from the factory. Somebody has been in there before you and replaced it.

Click to expand...

Aahhh... makes sense!

Could someone share a little more detail on the "smoke from steering column" problem? I'm getting a wisp of smoke from time to time, but it's coming from the center of the column (about where the hazard light switch is). If the ignition switch is faulty, would i see the smoke coming more from the right side of the column?

The other symptom is that the turn signals randomly stop working properly - i get a fast flash as if a bulb were bad, but the bulbs are fine, and the problem is intermittent. I'm thinking i might have a short rather than a faulty ignition switch...

Thanks!
Llewellyn

Great Photos

Thanks kooyajerms!
For the excellent photos.
Really helped cut down on the anxiety level
when replacing the switch!

I used a vise grips on the collar and pulley puller
to pull the collar. - Which worked well.

Thanks for taking the time to take and post photos.
Very helpful!

Glad that worked out for you. Yes, I have more tools 3 years later. I would rather have cut the collar off and put a new one =)

This is great. The other night i was driving and suddenly started to smell overheated electronics. Then all the accessories that are activated by turning on the ignition went out.

Even the power windows that normally auto down and auto up, only auto down now.

Think my ignition switch has bit the dust as well?

Thx

Nice write-up. I removed the steering column on my 1994 Golf a couple of years ago to replace the switch. I left the steering wheel attached. Your way would make some of the things easier. One suggestion: Get help putting the column back in - you can concentrate on lining things up while the other person lowers the column in. My 13 y.o. daughter helped back then so it does not have to be a fellow TDIer.

Thanks.

98 Jetta no headlights

Just reviving an old thread to thank those that contributed. My son's 98 TDI Jetta lost its hi beams a while ago, and then recently lost the low beams. Both headlights continued to work on the daytime "on" feature, but that was no good at night due to having no rear lights (and getting pulled over for lack thereof) & no dash lights.

At first I suspected the headlight switch & replaced it, but nothing changed. Searched around here & decided to go for the ignition switch. I used the vwvortex procedure (pulled the steering column), and with a little fooling around with a jeweler's screwdriver on the switch setscrew, was able to replace the switch without disassembling the column. Replaced switch & voila -- LIGHTS!! All the lights now work correctly.

Chris

No offense to the OP but this is a retarded way of going the ignition switch. I pulled a switch last night in 30 min using a combination of a puller and a c clamp to get the spline adapter off and a bolt out to remove the pesky carriage bolt that held the ignitioin mechanism to the column. Half the cars i do this on have an allen instead of that carriage bolt. If you dont have bolt outs simply cut a slot in the bold head with a dremal.

Of course it is, but if you don't have the puller and don't have a dremel that's what you do. I said it from the beginning, this is what you do when you don't have the tools. That was 4 years ago on my jetta. I'm using a puller on my passat.

kooyajerms said:

Of course it is, but if you don't have the puller and don't have a dremel that's what you do. I said it from the beginning, this is what you do when you don't have the tools. That was 4 years ago on my jetta. I'm using a puller on my passat.

Click to expand...

Agreed, i would recommend to anyone who seeks to be a competent enough DIYer to tackle a job like this to purchase or rent a proper puller. A dremel is cheap as well. I managed to use vice grips once to remove the headless bold.

At the time I didn't know of autozone renting out pullers, or I
would have for sure.

Funny that people struggle with the bolt, on mine the headless bolt was finger tight.

Jeremy

kooyajerms said:

At the time I didn't know of autozone renting out pullers, or I
would have for sure.

Funny that people struggle with the bolt, on mine the headless bolt was finger tight.

Jeremy

Click to expand...

that has always been my experience. It exists only as a safety, not a load bearing fastener

spring on steering column shaft

Hello-

I am replacing the ignition switch. Can someone confirm that the spring that is at the bottom of the steering column should go INSIDE the shaft (rather than outside and just above the steering knuckle)? The manual is a little ambiguous and I cannot tell for certain where it should go, or where it went before.

Thank you.

Dan