Thanks mbamba. Question, on the plans you keep the motor connected in the project box. Does the motor still run or make noise in the box?

 

The electric motor from the old column lock still runs. It is important that when you place the parts in the project box, you tightly mount the motor. So far, it has worked flawlessly. It is so nice to be able to know this beautiful car will now start every time. Before I made this change, I was afraid to take it anywhere....

 

Now that's also a good idea.

 

I just bought an 05 A4. Will I have this problem with the SCL. How can you find out if any recall work has been done on the car. I bought it from a private owner. Is it to late to get any of the recall work done. The car has over $60,000 miles.

 

Only manual transmission C6 built in 2005 have a column lock. The automatics did not have one and cannot have this specific problem.

There is a recall on the steering column related to wiring that you should ensure was applied.

Good Luck,
Mike

 

Export Corvettes have the SCLM, regardless of the year. In Europe, starting this year, the SCLM behaviour is verified at the DMV every two years.

 

Hello guys,

I bought my 2005 C6 (automatic) about one year ago. Last summer I experienced the "service column lock (SCL)" shortly when it was very hot. After about a month it re-occurred and dis-appeared soon. At the end of 2011 the frequency increased and recovery time was longer. Shaking the locked steering wheel, ticking the module and touching the flat cable did not have any influence. Last month, the problem happened again and recovery took very long. Dis-connecting of battery for a night and re-charging did not help. My garage (small one, no Corvette but this guy finally fixes everything despite car brand / type / year) removed the steer and removed the actuator part. In the mean time I spend hours and hours searching the internet for information. Many people talk about the battery or removing the +-pole for a few minutes but in my case it did not help (battery OK).
The part (actuator with flat cable and connector) is not on stock in Holland and price would be about 800 $ for the part only. Although price is a bit high for what you get, I would buy a new actuator immediately when it would not have been a "mis-product"; I am afraid same problem will happen again after several months. In that case that amount of money hurts me.
After one day the car was OK again several times but not every time. We opened the actuator and found that the plastic screw had an area where there was a much higher friction. The mechanical parts are mainly plastic. The switching of the micro-switch is quit critical also. In my case, it switches between 487 & 294 Ohm. These values are also printed on the resistors itself but these are surely no standarised values (strange to me). To solve the worm-friction is quite simple but did not feel as being sufficient.
Luckily I found the description of Michael Bomba on this site. Thank you for making such complete and clear document ! Last week I ordered the components and this evening I connected it as descripbed, leaving the motor connector. Removing the switch was harder as I thought and was not done without damaging the flat cable a bit. However with a knive you can carefully remove plastic to reveal some new cupper to make new small contacts. Result at this moment: via the connector I can change the state of the relay and at same connector I measure the 487 & 294 Ohm again (yeah). Only there is still 50% chance that the polarity is NOK but this should be tested at the car. Tomorrow I will bring the parts (built inside a small project box just like Michael suggested) to my Garage and hopefully they can test it soon. Changing of polarity can be done at the relay without soldering.
Basicially, it SHOULD work because behavior of input and output is really similar to the original. Only when the problem is inside the flatcable itself OR in the box between actuator and computer a failure can happen again. Let's see. Some comments:
1 The other end of the actuator goes to a small box which is located behind my instrument panel. So after removing the steer, the "I call it clocks" need to be removed as one big part to access the connection box and connector of the actuator.
2. The automatics of 2005 in the USA and all C6's after 2005 do not have the CLM. How was this done ? Probably it was programmed out of the computer ? The Dutch importer of Corvette did not have any knowledge about this. That is one of the reasons that I did not bring the car there (also not so close to my home).
3. I can not believe that the motor should really be connected. but to be sure I followed Michaels advise. Maybe later I want to test everything with the motor dis-connected.
4. I also believe that -when it works now- we don't actually need the long -bit vunlerable- flat cable; you can make these very specific resistance values directly behind the relay and directly to the connector. But also here I kept to Michaels plan for safety.
5. Finally: driving the C6 is a pleasure. But this specific item destroys quite some fun. They built in a component for preventing theft and the result is that I'm just lucky when I can use my own car. Appearently not so much was learned from the C5 actuator. Now I know that many people have this trouble and GM does not really offer a sollution like a by-pass. The only sollution they have is the 800 $ replacement part in my case but how long will it last then ?

When my by-pass is tested, I will let you guys know the result. If you have any comment or advise for me, please let me know. See yah.

 

Well.....Welcome to the Forum!!!

Can't answer your question. If no one else here answers you in the next day or 2, I suggest you send a PM (Private Message) to member talon90. If he doesn't already know the answer he has the resources to find the answer.

Good luck. Congratulations on digging into the mechanics of your problem. Well done.

 

Hey guys,

In the mean time my bypass was tested at the car but unfortunately the car does still not start. Still I am convinced that the bypass itself is OK; when switching the relay, still the lower and higher resistence are present. Of course I tried both ways of polarity to the motor. And further more I switched between the resistor values by switching the wires at the relay. But in non of the situations, the motor was turning and/or the relais was switched. So my problem has to be "stream upwards" in the module in which the ribbon cable connecter is inserted or in the connector or wiring from this module to the car's computer. Since I saw that the by-pass is doing exactly what a good actuater is doing (switching the relay state and giving the correct high and low resistence value back), I am not completely not in favour of buying a new actuator. Or maybe I miss an action to make the module "listening" to the actuator or the bypass ? I hope my garage finds out a good solution soon. What exactly is different to the C6's which do NOT use the column lock ? How was that overruled ? Can I copy this ? Something with the wiring ? Another software ? If anyone has any advise or suggestion, feel free to teach me :-)

Best regards and have a nice day,

Ruud

PS: Rick T, thank you for the warm welcome ;-) I will try to send Talon90 a PM now.

 

Has there been anymore progress on this? I would like to jump on board as I am unable to get my car to start because of the column lock.
Thanks!

 

 

I finished doing the column lock bypass this weekend. Thanks mbomba for the design! Also, thanks to csnow for his write-up (http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-c...ck-2005-a.html)

On my car it looks like for some reason the ribbon coming out of the steering column lock had been cut and wires were soldered onto it which ran to the computer. Not sure why this was done. Maybe the ribbon was damaged and needed to be replaced. Anyway the bypass design worked well for me.

 

Here are a couple pictures I took that may help someone trying to do this.

Here is a picture of the steering column lock and the plastic back that needs to be removed:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2ewdwzs&s=5
I had to break off the little metal tabs to remove the plastic.

Below is after removing the plastic backing. You can see the microswitch in the center and the gold motor to the right of it. Those are the only two things that need to be saved from inside the mechanism. Also be careful not to damage the ribbon cable.
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=mh35ed&s=5

 

Steering column lock casing with electronics removed:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=f3t2yu&s=5

Close up of the ribbon cable, microswitch, and motor:
http://tinypic.com/r/2cz9i69/5

 

I assume that the lock casing has to get reinstalled after the motor assembly is removed ?

 

Yes, the lock casing needs to be reinstalled.

 

After the bypass is installed is there less of a delay when you push the start button ? Also do you still hear the lock motor sound ??

 

There is much less delay after the fix. I can still hear the motor since I left it hooked up (but put it in a box under the dash, like mbomba). The motor sounds much different though; before it sounded weak and like it was straining.

 

Too bad the motor can't be eliminated. Wonder why?

 

I agree that would be ideal and I think potentially it could be removed.

I just left it in to be safe because I didn't want to deal with resoldering it to the ribbon cable if something went wrong. When I have more time maybe I will try to remove it and see if it still works. I suppose even if the computer expects that it is there it could be replaced with a resistor to simulate the load of the motor.