Comment. The work is shown on a car equipped with an airbag. Operation on a vehicle without an airbag is carried out in the same way.
Removing
1. We prepare the car for work (see «Preparing the car for maintenance and repair»), remove the terminal from the negative terminal of the battery.
Attention! On a vehicle equipped with an airbag, wait at least five minutes to prevent the airbag from deploying after disconnecting the battery before continuing. Lay the removed airbag module with the actuator down and away from the workplace.
2. We set the front wheels of the car to the position of rectilinear movement.
3. On both sides of the steering wheel with a 5 mm hex wrench, unscrew one bolt securing the airbag module.
4. With a thin slotted screwdriver, we release the module from engagement with any of the unscrewed bolts (bolts do not fall out of the hole and prevent the removal of the module from the steering wheel).
5. Having removed the airbag module from the steering wheel, use the blade of a slotted screwdriver to release the wire block retainer.
6. Disconnect the wire block from the airbag module and remove the trim assembly.
7. If it is necessary to install the steering wheel in its original position in any way possible (marker, felt-tip pen, thin chisel) make alignment marks on the shaft and steering wheel.
8. Using a 24 mm socket wrench with an extension, unscrew the steering wheel mounting nut and leave the nut on several turns of the shaft thread.
9. With successive blows of the palms on the rim of the steering wheel on the right and left sides, knock it off the splines of the shaft.
Advice. If it is not possible to remove the steering wheel in the shown way, we will loosen its fastening on the splines of the shaft. To do this, we screw the nut flush with the shaft and apply several blows with a hammer on the end of the shaft through a soft metal drift, while propping the steering wheel with our knees towards ourselves.
10. Disconnect the horn switch wire blocks and unscrew the steering wheel nut.
11. Remove the steering wheel from the shaft, while pulling the slip ring wires together with the pads from the hole in the steering wheel hub.
Warning. When removing the steering wheel, the movable part of the slip ring is fixed by a locking mechanism, which prevents it from rotating. Do not press the retainer ring, and rotate the movable part of the slip ring. As a result, during assembly, the central position of the movable part of the ring may be disturbed. In this case, there is a high probability of damage to the slip ring when the steering wheel is turned to one of the extreme positions.
Installation
We install the steering wheel in the reverse order, aligning the previously made marks and installing a new self-locking nut.
Advice. If you need to install the steering wheel in a new position (for example, when driving in a straight line, the steering wheel spokes are tilted), put the wheel on the shaft and fix it with the nut without tightening it. After driving straight for a few meters, make sure it is in the correct position. If necessary, rearrange the steering wheel to the required number of splines and tighten the nut.
We tighten the steering wheel mounting nut with a torque of 31.4-51 Nm (3.2-5.2 kgf·m).