Dash / steering wheel electronics acting up.

[Ireland]

I have yet another issue with my "baby".

This time it's all happening (or not) with the dash and steering wheel electronics.

Here's an outline of what's happening (and in the order they happened as best I can remember them) .....

- the RHS indicator didn't self-cancel every time

- the screen-wash function would take a while to get it to work sometimes

- the wipers wouldn't turn off

- the wipers wouldn't turn on

- the green frost light started flashing with the RHS indicator

- the green frost light stopped when I pressed the button to turn on the wipers

- if the wipers didn't come on I managed to get them working by turning the steering wheel while keeping the wipers button pressed.

I took off the steering wheel and checked the plug-in connections for the buttons but they all were tight.

I checked the ribbon-lead and it appears to be tight as well.

I'm guessing it's probably one of these that's causing the problem

- ribbon lead

- electronic board under the steering column

- wiper control box

but that's just my guess.

Have any of you had this happen and, if so, what is the way to solve it?

[Ireland]

I've identified there's a break in the ribbon cable somewhere between the 4 plugs under the steering wheel and the control box in the footwell.

Can someone please tell me how to get the bloody steering boss off ?????

[Brummmie]

Once you have removed the centre nut, its on a tapered spline. you have to devise something to get leverage.

[Ireland]

Brummmie said:

Once you have removed the centre nut, its on a tapered spline. you have to devise something to get leverage.

Oh.

So it's tapered.

I had a bearing pullers on it and I had a fair bit of tension on it but I stopped 'cos I reckoned it should come apart easier than that.

I'll try again tomorrow evening.

BTW what is inside the boss once I get it opened?

Is it just a coil of ribbon lead as it appears or is there some sort of contact strip in there as well?

[Ireland]

I'll try attaching a length of Unistrut to the metal piece between the aluminium boss and the steering wheel itself and try to use that to allow two of us to "lever" it off.

[Ireland]

I failed.

Miserably.

The steering boss simply won't shift.

I tried pullers, bars, winding up a nut along threaded bar against a flat bar, hitting it, etc.

Nothing worked.

The pullers even bent so I gave up before I broke a bit of the car.

I suspect someone may have put some sort of sealant on it.

I've sprayed in some penetrating oil and I put it all back together again for now.

I'll leave the oil to work and try it again in a few days.


All suggestions are very welcome.

[TailHappy]

Ive been tracing a similar indicator fault to you. As said the wheel is on a hexagonal taper with 17mm(headed) bolt. the green circuit board you can see through the wheel centre is what all the steering wheel wires connect to, this green board then goes through to the back of the boss and the large coiled ribbon cable plugs into it. If you cant get the wheel off it might be worth you getting upside down in the footwell looking up at the back of the wheel boss. look near the 2 microswitches for the indicators at the bottom of the boss there is a slot that the ribbon cable comes out of from the wheel boss, mine has another connector there. There is then a straight ribbon cable that goes from this joint to the pcb that controls the indicator cancel circuit, this may be where your break is, so you may be able to solve it without removing the wheel.

On mine the indicator wouldnt cancel after going right. I found a dry soldered joint on the cancelling circuit baord. On the board there are 2 photo cells, 1 for turn left cancel and 1 for turn right cancel, theres a steel disc on the steering column with a quarter missing that passes through these photo cells providing the cancelling. On mine the right turn cancel photocell had a dry joint on 1 terminal, i resoldered it and all works ok now. I will try and get some photos up tomorrow if it would help?

apologies for the long explanation but hope it helps.

[Old Geezer]

If you bent the pullers! Were they decent ones?

Put them back on, tighten up (don't bend them) and give the adjusting bolt a wack with a hammer!

Should release it easy!

[Ireland]

TailHappy said:

Ive been tracing a similar indicator fault to you. As said the wheel is on a hexagonal taper with 17mm(headed) bolt. the green circuit board you can see through the wheel centre is what all the steering wheel wires connect to, this green board then goes through to the back of the boss and the large coiled ribbon cable plugs into it. If you cant get the wheel off it might be worth you getting upside down in the footwell looking up at the back of the wheel boss. look near the 2 microswitches for the indicators at the bottom of the boss there is a slot that the ribbon cable comes out of from the wheel boss, mine has another connector there. There is then a straight ribbon cable that goes from this joint to the pcb that controls the indicator cancel circuit, this may be where your break is, so you may be able to solve it without removing the wheel.

On mine the indicator wouldnt cancel after going right. I found a dry soldered joint on the cancelling circuit baord. On the board there are 2 photo cells, 1 for turn left cancel and 1 for turn right cancel, theres a steel disc on the steering column with a quarter missing that passes through these photo cells providing the cancelling. On mine the right turn cancel photocell had a dry joint on 1 terminal, i resoldered it and all works ok now. I will try and get some photos up tomorrow if it would help?

apologies for the long explanation but hope it helps.

I've been metering the ribbon cable from the back of the boss to where it goes into the box and there appears to be no break there.

Also this section of the cable looks fine.

I have managed to get an open-circuit reading between the pins behind the steering wheel and the box.

I'm 99% sure the break is in the boss but, as it's intermittent, I really need to split the boss to be certain.

Also I reckon there may be a dry-joint on my indicator cancelling board as well (as it's started to work again now that I've been messing about with it).

Old Geezer said:

If you bent the pullers! Were they decent ones?

Put them back on, tighten up (don't bend them) and give the adjusting bolt a wack with a hammer!

Should release it easy!

The pullers were a decent set of Teng-Tool ones which have done what always appeared to be more difficult jobs with no issues.

Time to see if they will honour their lifetime-warranty, methinks.

[TailHappy]

If you cannot get the wheel off with your puller then there is another way to get to the thin wires that go from the steering wheel buttons to the green pcb in the wheel boss. I found by mistake that if you undo the allen bolts around the steering wheel centre the wheel becomes detached from the boss. The wires are very delicate though so be careful. You can access all the wires that go from the steering wheel buttons and diagnose whether or not the coiled ribbon cable is at fault. If it is then you do need to remove the boss with your puller.

[brogenville]

I had a lot of trouble both with my ribbon cable and with getting the whell off. Where the ribbon cable joins onto the steering wheel circuit board was a nightmare, as it always looked ok, and tested ok, but even the slightest touch to the connector would cause it to play up. I ended up soldering all the contacts fromm the ribbon directly onto the circuit board- extreme, but I just got so fed up with it I couldnt care less if it wasnt that pretty.

With regard to getting the wheel off I found that a neat way to do it was to loosen the retaining bolt right off, but to leave it screwed on by a few threads. I then got a lever (a big screwdriver) in behind the front of the boss and pulled my lever so that it acted against the top of the retaining bolt. Simple way to do it without any pullers and worked a treat for me.

Edited by brogenville on Wednesday 29th October 11:52

[Erich Stahler]

TailHappy said:

If you cannot get the wheel off with your puller then there is another way to get to the thin wires that go from the steering wheel buttons to the green pcb in the wheel boss. I found by mistake that if you undo the allen bolts around the steering wheel centre the wheel becomes detached from the boss. The wires are very delicate though so be careful. You can access all the wires that go from the steering wheel buttons and diagnose whether or not the coiled ribbon cable is at fault. If it is then you do need to remove the boss with your puller.

This is what i did, remove the steering wheel from the boss by first removing the TVR wheel centre, I think you have to prize the TVR badge of to get inside there which is very fragile. In my case it was the pcb connectors from the buttons to the pcbs that were causing problems so just bought nearest match i could from maplins and soldered them to new wires, couple of years on and all wheel buttons still working prefectly!

[Ireland]

TailHappy said:

If you cannot get the wheel off with your puller then there is another way to get to the thin wires that go from the steering wheel buttons to the green pcb in the wheel boss. I found by mistake that if you undo the allen bolts around the steering wheel centre the wheel becomes detached from the boss. The wires are very delicate though so be careful. You can access all the wires that go from the steering wheel buttons and diagnose whether or not the coiled ribbon cable is at fault. If it is then you do need to remove the boss with your puller.

I've done all that already.

The wheel buttons are fine.

The break is between the four pairs of pins behind the wheel and the box under the dash.

The wheel does have to come off.


I also tried the idea of levering up both the wheel and the boss but it won't budge.


A mate had a look at it with me and he can't believe either how difficult it is to shift the wheel.

He actually reckoned something was about to break if I applied any more force.

We do reckon that some clown put some form of a Loctite-type adhesive ..... on the bloody splines.

[baztvr]

last night i went to take mine for a drive, similar thing happened, but lights were on full beam, with out the lights being switched on at the main switch. then on turning the wheel a few degrees the indicators come on. any ideas?.sorry to push-in on someone elses thread.I shall have a look on the weekend...to cold in the garage

[Ireland]

baztvr said:

last night i went to take mine for a drive, similar thing happened, but lights were on full beam, with out the lights being switched on at the main switch. then on turning the wheel a few degrees the indicators come on. any ideas?.sorry to push-in on someone elses thread.I shall have a look on the weekend...to cold in the garage

In your case the headlights could be due to the ribbon lead shorting but the indicators aren't on it at the wheel.

They join the ribbon lead down along the steering column.

Your fault may be down in that area.

[Brummmie]

I changed my steering wheel today, i have a later 2001 wheel, by the way they are thicker by around a 1/4" diameter. It came off with one tap towards me. Something is going on with yours for sure. The little TVR tinkers had wired it up so the wiring had to be turned 180 degrees through the steering column! Took some head scratching...bless em.

[Ireland]

Brummmie said:

I changed my steering wheel today, i have a later 2001 wheel, by the way they are thicker by around a 1/4" diameter. It came off with one tap towards me. Something is going on with yours for sure.....

I know.

It was suggested this evening that I try pouring some nail varnish remover onto the top of the splines and allow it to soak in to see if it'll dissolve whatever adhesive was used.

Somehow I reckon I'll get some strange looks when I go in to the shop for that, eh?

[baztvr]

Dear Ireland, thanks for the feedback, but i sorted it. just had a look at the recently downloaded workshop manual/Electics, fist page is about indicator cancelation switch. first section discribed my 'fault'.it seems that I have started the engine,gripped the wheel too hard with my super size Kenny Everit preacher hands and with out knowing pressed the three buttons on the wheel that set up the cancelation sequence. thought I had faulty wires as I turned the wheel and indicators flashed.How I love my TVR...I am stupid.

[JensenA]

Ireland - Go to the paint mixing counter in Halfords and ask them to make up an aerosol of pure thinners, a lot easier to spray onto the nut, and that should dissolve the loctite - a good Hard Tap with a heavy mallet, rather than a steady push/pull, is best to break the seal.

Edited by JensenA on Saturday 1st November 12:53

[Ireland]

Thanks for that suggestion Alan.

I've managed to get a half bottle of nail varnish remover of her-indoors so I'll try that this evening to see if it dissolves the glue.

I've actually got a 25ltr container of thinners and some empty spray bottles in the work workshop so I can make one up if I need to.

I was actually thinking of getting a small syringe to get the liquid into the correct position.

The N.V. remover / thinners may mess up the plastic bits if it gets onto them.