Originally Posted by mathia

OK, I've finally got my pics online! I'm no expert and this is only a rough summary of what i did (or at least what I remember doing), but I hope some will find this useful. Having the GM service manuals handy is always good.

First thing to do is loosen (but don't remove) the bolt that connects the upper steering shaft with the steering column. I found it was a lot easier to get at the bolt by disconnecting the rubber hose going to the AIR tube on the exhaust headers.



You can see the upper steering shaft with the blue "Notice" sticker. Here is a pic of the upper joint with the bolt that will be loosened. It's just below the right most ignition coil.



In the above pic the wheel is turned straight ahead. In this position the bolt head is at an angle you can't get at. Turn the wheel about 90 degrees to the left (IIRC) and you'll have the bolt head pointing up. Like this I was able to use a couple of extensions together to get a socket on there and be able to swing the ratchet.



Make sure you just loosen the bolt. You want to have the wheel pointing straight ahead when you install the sensor. Once you get it loose, turn the steering wheel to straight ahead and then remove the bolt by hand. This is where removing the AIR tube hose really helps, but it's still kind of a pain.

Now with the steering shaft disconnected from the steering column you can unbolt the steering column. There are four bolt that hold it in place. To get at the upper ones you need to remove the knee bolster. With that out, you can see the upper two nuts.



And here are the lower ones.



Well, actually you can only see one of them in the pic. You can also see the sensor here. It is behind the green ring. On its left you can see the connector for it. Remove the connector and all for bolts. There are also some ties that secure the wiring harnesses to the steering column. Undo the ties to create some slack in the wiring. You can now pull the steering column away from the firewall and fully disengage it from the steering shaft.



In theory, at this point you should be able to slide the steering sensor off the end of the column. Mine was really stuck on there so I ended up pulling the column out of the car to get a better grip on it.

If you're removing the column that means you have to disconnect the air bag. The GM service manuals state that the air bag holds about 15 seconds worth of charge so that the air bags can deploy even if the battery is disconnected. To avoid possibly having the air bag deploy you must disconnect the battery and then pull the fuse for the air bags. (I forget which on it is now, I'll post it later).

Once you're certain the air bags have no power and are fully discharged, disconnect all the wiring connectors on the steering column. I must say I hate automotive electrical connectors, unplugging them in particular. These have a little locking piece you've got to push out with a small flat head screw driver before you can pull them a part. Once they are all undone you are now free to pull the whole column out.



Slide the sensor off and put on the new one. The new one has a black pin in it to keep it from moving out of the centered position. Don't remove that pin until the sensor is on the shaft, otherwise it won't give the right voltage on center. Here you can see the pin.



With the new sensor on slide the steering shaft back through the firewall. This is a little tricky because there is a rubber grommet and a seal the column goes through. If your not careful (like me) you can push the grommet out of the firewall. It's a bit of a pain to shove it back in. I recommend having a second set of hands hold the grommet in place from the engine compartment side.

Then bolt the column in the car and plug in all the connectors. Put the upper steering shaft bolt back in by hand. Turn the wheel so you can access the bolt with a socket and tighten it. I think that's it. It's been a couple months since I did this and active handling has been working fine since.

Originally Posted by maestro300

I found an extremely easy way to remove the column (even with the telescopic steering wheel) Remove the two posts that the 1/2" steering column nuts screwed onto. I think I used a 5mm socket. After those two posts were removed, the entire column pulled out with NO resistance at all... literally just popped right out of the firewall! The photos are post-removal but screwed them back in to show what I was talking about.

Entire breakdown was about 40 mins... hope the install goes just as fast! Thanks for the great writeups... though you might want to add the step to remove those two screw posts.. it made it from a PIA to Piece of cake!

Originally Posted by Cfiveornothing

Hey, Maestro300,
I appreciate the tip to remove the two mounting studs! I did just that but I am still having trouble pulling the column through the firewall!! It is fighting me every step of the way! I shake and wiggle it back and forth and get another inch or so, then it seems to hang up on something else!! I am certain I have unplugged all the connectors. How is this easy?! What am I missing here?!

Originally Posted by Greg H

Mneblett was exactly right. I wouldn't do this repair without using the factory column lock either.

Originally Posted by ROCKnROLL

I'm getting code TCS 1288. The steering rack was removed and I guess when it was reinstalled they didn't get the SWPS lined up properly. I wanted to know how much is involved in just repositioning it as opposed to removing it?

Thanks,
Rock

Originally Posted by ROCKnROLL

I'm getting code TCS 1288. The steering rack was removed and I guess when it was reinstalled they didn't get the SWPS lined up properly. I wanted to know how much is involved in just repositioning it as opposed to removing it?

Thanks,
Rock

Originally Posted by ZZ06

Hmmm seems simple enough. However I have some questions pertaining to my own situation. I wish I could take a pic and post but I'm not in the country currently. My steering wheel is cocked when the wheels are straight. I know it needs an alignment(although I shoulve had it corrected years ago). Everybody here stresses that the wheels need to be straight when doing this. Should I have the STEERING WHEEL straight or the WHEELS straight (hence my problem in doing this as it will be one or the other)? And before anyone asks, yes it has been this way for the (upcoming) 9years ive owned it. The code just surfaced about a few weeks before I deployed. Never been an issue. I just don't want to screw up the airbag coil.

Originally Posted by froggy47

This is an old thread & a long one.

Are you talking about replacing the sensor?

If yes, IIWM I'd get the alignment right before I started on the sensor.

Maybe that's not necessary, but I like to work one issue at a time.

Originally Posted by Zealot06

I will be replacing my SWPS soon. A part number 88965543 has been mentioned on this thread several times. When I go to GMPartsDirect.com, it comes up as usable on telescoping steering columns. My 2002 Z06 doesn't have the telescoping column. Is the 88965543 the correct part number for a non-telescoping column?

Originally Posted by SilverC54me

Go to Cultrag Factory parts, a forum vendor. They will get you the correct part for your car.

Gary

Originally Posted by Tracy

I haven't posted any technical information to this forum in.......6 years or so. I used to be a constant presence here in the early days of the C5, when I got my 2000 FRC (arguing with Jim Hall about the merits of his original TRIK intake system) , but once I got my 2003 Z, I was basically done with doing any serious mods and kinda drifted away.....discovered race bikes.....gone. At some point you get tired of oil threads, tire monitor threads, cat-back threads, cold-air intake threads (!!) wax threads, Optima battery threads, loose seat track threads, gas gage threads, tacky overdone modification threads......

But anyway, I just changed my sensor out after receiving the ususal 1287 and 1288 DIC messages that anyone reading this thread has seen, and here are my tips. The job took me about 4 hours (working and watching the wall-mount TV in the garage) but I could do it in 90 minutes now that I know exactly what to do and what the nut sizes are. It's technically very simple, but a real pain-in-the-*** as far as working under the dash area.

1. In my opinion, you should make it easy on yourself and remove the left front wheel and the black plastic access panel that is just behind it. That panel is held on by 8 or 9 sheetmetal screws that take a 7mm socket. It only takes minute to remove this panel, and it provides easy access to the otherwise extremely difficult-to-reach steering shaft bolt/nut. You'll drop the nut or the bolt and have to remove this panel anyway to find it, so do it now. You know how to remove a dang wheel, and you know how to unscrew a handful of sheetmetal screws, so do it!! You can see the head of the bolt thru the wheelwell in this picture.



2. The nut gets removed with a 15mm socket. You don't have to hold the head of the bolt, as it has a locking tang that prevents it from turning. You can see this tang in the above photo. You have to turn the steering wheel to get the nut pointing at you for easy removal.

3. If you have Column Lock Bypass, you MUST reverse it to prevent a horrible disaster of having the wheel turned when it's disconnected from the car. Horrible. The reversal 's easy to do, since you have to remove all the dashboard stuff anyway, which allows ultra-easy access to the CLB connector. The reversal method is to turn the key to On, remove fuse 25, remove the CLB, reattach the original Column Lock connector, reinstall fuse 25, turn key Off and remove it. You should hear the lock do it's little buzz noise (you probably forgot what it sounded like). But wait until you do the two steps I've listed belowto make it super easy on yourself. Pull fuse 16 (airbag) while you're in the fuse block. In fact, do it early in the process to be safe. I'm not going into the airbag disarming procedure here, but you've been warned.

4. This has not been clearly mentioned in this thread so far: After you remove the knee bolster panel, you then have to remove the black plastic "tray" that is under the column. This tray contains the footwell light. To remove, you pull down gently on the front corners to extract the plastic trim fasteners holding those corners in place. It's easy to do, just pull straight down gently and firmly. Then, there is a third fastener in the back, and it's one of those flat metal retainers, very similar to what holds a brake rotor onto one wheel stud. I stuck a VERY large screwdriver between the plastic tray and the metal above it and twisted the screwdriver to force the clip down the stud a little ways. Then once it was a little loose, I could grab it with a needlenose and twist it off. This is a really dumb place for such a fastener, and as Indy300 has already mentioned, it's about the hardest thing to this whole job! The light unclips from behind and goes downward thru the tray. You can then manuver it out of the tray and get the tray completely out of your way. Or leave the the light in place and the tray on the floor, your choice.

5. Now you have to remove the metal frame that holds the white styrofoam plastic knee bolster thingy. The column will not move rearward far enough or come out of the car without removing this thing. This is quickly done by removing the two small black screws on each side with the same 7mm socket you used to remove that wheelwell panel. The bolster drops out of the way and stays attached to the wires that are clipped to it, like this:



6. Now you can easily do the CLB reversal job with this stuff out of the way.

7. I recommend that you plan on taking the entire column out. It is MUCH easier to replace the sensor with the column out of the car. The sensor is a very tight fit to the steering shaft (by design) and would really be difficult to get it of the bottom of the shaft when it's in the car, IMO. All you have to do is detach the 5 or 6 electrical connectors (including the sensor connector down at the firewall) before you go to remove the column. Trust me on this--remove the connectors now so you can easily remove the entire wheel/column assembly when you get it unbolted.

8. The four nuts that hold the column in place are a 13mm socket. Remove the firewall nuts first, then one of the upper nuts, and then remove the final upper nut while you keep the column from dropping with your other hand. It's no heavy and won't come crashing down, but you'll want to support it.

9. Set a towel on the concrete so when you remove the column, you can set it down on the wheel without damaging anything.

10 After you get that last upper nut off, the whole column comes right out if you've gotten all the electrical connectors detached. Nothing to it. Super easy. Don't scratch your car with the end of the shaft as you triumphantly carry your column assembly to the towel!!

11. Replacing the sensor takes about 30 seconds.

As removed from car, looking at the dust seal:



Dust seal is easily removed, showing sensor:



Sensor is held very snugly on the shaft by those many copper fingers that can be seen in the inside diameter, and by the green housing. This snug fit is why many of us are advising you to remove the column instead of working under the dash. You just lift a retainer tab or two on the green housing and it wiggles right up and off.



Pop the new sensor in. You'll know where it goes, so don't worry about screwing this up. It's ultra-obvious. Foolproof.



Now remove the pin. It's totally safe to do so at this point. It just pulls out with a little twist. Voila! Toss the famous pin in the trash....it's done its job.



Pop the dust seal back on and you're done with this operation.



12. So, now you put the column back in the car. You WILL dislodge the big grommet in the firewall, but don't worry about that at all. Use one of the upper nuts to loosely hold the column in place while you worry about getting the shaft joint to engage with the lower shaft stuff that's still in the car. It's easy, but a PITA. A second pair of hands would be great as you feed the shaft thru the firewall, but not mandatory.

13. Once you have the grommet on the shaft and that joint reengaged, loosely install the other three nuts that hold the column in place. Now you can get that grommet back into the firewall, all lined up. It just pushes in, nice and snug. I used a wood paint stirrer to work it all around from various directions, because even with the wheelwell opened up it's still difficult to get to. And THAT is why I think you should remove the wheel and the panel, as it's very difficult to see and reach from above. To me, that means it's very difficult to properly get it back in place.

14. At this point, it's a reversal of your work. If you damaged that damn tray retainer to get it off, you can either bend it back into shape, or use a washer with a piece of tubing on that stud to hold the tray in place. I straightened and salvaged the retainer, no problem, and the two front trim clips can be reused, no problem.

15. The shaft bolt likes to drop out of place when you turn the wheel to get the threads facing you to put the nut on. Ask me how I know. I used some duct tape to hold that bolt in place when I turned the wheel 180 degrees to get the nut on.

16. Don't go wild with tightening that shaft nut or the 4 nuts under the dash. They don't need to be some high torque value, just "tight". I didn't bother to look up the torque values in my manual because I noted during disassemby that they weren't very tight to begin with.

That's about it as far at my tips on doing this job. Follow the excellent information that is posted above me and use my added info, and you'll have no problems. When I was done, I fired the car up, had zero DIC messages and drove away to go slide around some corners with Active Handling back in action!!

Originally Posted by jdmvette

does anyone have the part number for the SWPS? the one up top didnt give me anything.

i looked thru the catalogs on gmpartshouse but i couldnt find it. it's for a 2000 if that matters.

thanks.

Originally Posted by indy300

great write-up. That looks easy enough....

Does anyone know the part number for the sensor?