Arsenii

Hello,

Prologue: So imagine a situation - one day you wake up after a good night sleep, all is good, the day is bright, a perfect time to do all the things that you were pushing back for a few months now. Full of inspiration, you start up your gorgeous ES300, ready to take all the challenges the day has to offer, turn your steering wheel and hear this eye-watering, blood-curdling shriek that shakes you down to the core, gets right into your soul and steals all your marbles. All is lost, your left eye is now twitching, the rains start pouring straight from nowhere, the day is wasted. After five continuous hours of concussion, you come back to your senses, and realize that it is time to do something about it, now or never..

Since you are reading this mad man's passage, you are in the same boat, so you can relate. Now that you are back into the real world and can at least differentiate between screwdrivers, we can proceed with the diagnostics. In my case, the sound was coming from somewhere nearby, so I took off the plastic steering column cover and went for a ride with a stethoscope, which yielded the fact that the sound was coming from the clock spring.


The Repair:
Difficulty - Moderately easy.
Time - 30m to 1h.

Supplies:

1. 19mm Socket
2. Long T30 Torx bit
3. Small flat head screwdriver
4. PH2 screwdriver
5. Plastic pry tool
6. Towels
7. Grease

So after the sound was localized, it was time to take the steering wheel off. To do so is pretty simple - first of all, disconnect the battery and wait at least 10 minutes, since it will require taking the airbag off. Next, use a plastic pry tool or a small screwdriver to pry two covers off on each side of the wheel, that will grant you access to two T30 Torx bolts that hold the airbag on. Those bolts are retained by plastic clips, so they won't be coming out, just unscrew them as far as they will go and leave them in the wheel. After both bolts are unscrewed, lightly pull on the airbag, it also has a couple of plastic clips that hold it in place; after that, pull on the white tab away from the connector to disconnect the pigtail. IMPORTANT NOTICE: always set the airbag lying face up, so that in case if it were to deploy, it won't become a hazardous projectile flying around the garage.



Now is the fun part, taking the wheel off - it is easy, but needs to be done with caution. I suppose you can use a dedicated steering wheel puller that you can rent for free, but come on, who looks for easy ways out? Might as well just leave it to the specialized shop to do.. In lieu of that, we will proceed without any of your fancy technologies. Turn the wheel until it locks, then crack a 19mm nut, do not remove it just yet. Now unlock the wheel and get it as close to center as possible, unscrew the nut about quarter of the way, just so that you have a gap between it and the wheel, then embrace yourself and pull on the wheel, while also lightly rocking it side to side until it pops, which will indicate that it came off the taper; the nut was left to prevent the wheel from knocking you into another concussion while flying into an alternate pocket dimension with all your cash, never to be seen again. All that's left now is to unscrew the nut and take the wheel off.

And now let's talk about alignment - if you haven't started regretting about going through all that, now is the time. Khm.. Okay okay, just kidding, there are two ways of making sure you've got the steering aligned right, but only one right. I suppose you can use a sharpie or something, but it is quite tricky to reach the splines with the wheel still on, what you will be better off doing is use some common sense and your very own clock spring. The shaft on which the steering sits is splined, so one missed tooth is ... a lot (I am lazy to count teeth, give me a break), not everyone can be boast of that, so why not use it. Every clock spring has alignment arrows, if you get the clock spring perfectly aligned, one tooth out and the opening for the connector on the steering wheel won't clear. Besides that, if you will squint really hard, you will see three grooves on the back of the wheel, those are supposed to intermesh with the insert that switches your turn signal off, if those won't mesh, the clock spring will stay still while you turn the wheel.. Combination of all those factors will make the task of putting the wheel on crooked almost impossible, unless it is something you want to do on purpose.

Going back on track, everything that was done up to this point granted us access to the clock spring, the source of all the fuss, or so you were lead to believe. Turns out that the issue was not the clock spring, per say, it was the plastic ring or insert, whatever it's called, which cancels the turn signal; it sits on a shaft, which is a part of the plate that holds all the column stalks, and it is supposed to be greased, which turned out to not be the case for one reason or the other. To remove it, unscrew four screws that hold the clock spring to the plate and disconnect it. To disconnect the airbag connector, pull apart two tabs on the cover, then open it; under the cover, there is a regular old connector that works pretty much as any other one. After that, carefully pull up on the insert. Careful is the key here, there is a spring under the insert, it is not that strong, but enough to cause havoc if you pull the insert too quickly (ask me how I know).


I figured it will be easier to take the whole switch assembly off and work with it on the bench, mostly because I've had other plans to do with it, that said, it is totally doable while everything is still on the car.

Because of lack of any sufficient lubrication, my insert already started deteriorating, but it wasn't bad enough to call it quits (mostly because I wasn't able to find a replacement), so I simply cleaned both the shaft and the insert to the best of my abilities, then pumped the whole 454 gram jar of grease in there and assembled it all back together. It is also important to cover the outside, since that's where the tab on the stalk interacts with the insert, thus wearing it out, mine looked worse on the outside than on the inside, which is something to consider.. A good tip before reassembly - before driving any screws back into those plastic threads, it is a good idea to spin them counter-clockwise until you feel a click, that will ensure that you get into the beginning of the thread, lessening your chance of stripping it. You are welcome.



Now that everything is lubricated, low and behold, that mesmerizing shriek is nowhere to be heard!


I'll need to mark the up side of the plate the next time I do this..

Now that the noise is gone, the life is back to normal again, the rain that was pouring non-stop for a week that you spent fighting the noise stopped right after your twitchy eye blinked, all is good, until you realize that your column stalks have long since ran out of grease, but that's a story for another day...

Well, it seems like it is all for today, I hope that at least few of you will find it all at least marginally helpful.. What I really wanted to deliver via that message (which is about ten times longer than I expected it to be) is for you to check on it, even if you don't have that issue right now. It seems like a common occurrence, since my Lexus is not the only one to have it, so it is not a bad idea to keep an eye on it before the things will get way out of whack..

Definitely let me know if you have any questions, I will try to answer them as best as I could..

Hope this helps and best of luck!

Hayk

iTrader: (1)

Thank you for sharing this. I’ve never had a squeak like that but now I know where to look.

kiwiinsask

cheers for the write up , i too have the moaning wheel noise , will be popping off the wheel this weekend now i know which part is being a **** .

kiwiinsask

so for me , it wasnt the plastic parts , but was down in the rubber boot for the steering column , some lube in there and she quiet

CornPump

Having the same issue and hoping the lithium grease method fixes it.

kiwiinsask

try the rubber boot first , then if still squeking , pull wheel , good luck

debor300

My Lexus RX300 has been squeeking for 2 years when turning corners. Sounds like mice in the column. Is it bad to not fix it? I kinda got used to it and now I am reading a solution.
what happens if not repaired?

Arsenii

The whole process is described above, not sure if there is much to add. If you have at least some experience, you won't have a ton of issues. Try the grease method first, since it's the easiest, if that won't work out, pull the wheel.

Nothing really, it's just very annoying..

Hope this helps and best of luck!