Steering wheel came off

My steering wheel came off how do I bolt it back up?

 

Some pictures

 

DANG!! Hope you weren’t going too fast at the time.

 

WTF? How did you do that? Something looks bustacated.

 

This weekend, someone posted pics of a tacomabeast with an aftermarket steering wheel setup. Maybe they can help

 

Best I can do for you bud.


Pics credit to TLS Auto Recycling https://www.tlsautorecycling.com/search/2013/toyota/tacoma/390093.html

 

Yeah there’s no “bolting it back on”. Metal has snapped. You should be able to look at the back of the wheel assembly and see the raw metal that should match up with raw metal on the column.

 

The steering column is designed to collapse in the event of a collision, it looks like something caused it to collapse unintentionally or it was installed incorrectly. I'm not sure if it can be put back on the mounts or not but I think it can be.

 

Makes you wonder if there was ever any service done prior?
One that called for the steering column to come down? Like a heater core or something?

 

Make Toyota fix it,that should NEVER happen,and would be grounds to sue big time if somebody was too get hurt with the steering wheel just falling off like that.

 

On a 10 year old truck of unknown history?

Good luck with that.

I have a feeling there's more to the story. Waiting for shenanigan tales to be told.

 

. . .

 

You aren't the first one to have this issue: See this thread.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/steering-wheel-fell-off.415419/

He had beat the crap out of it and confessed later in the thread. He had broken the plastic clips that the column slides in and out on.

It is fixable, but a real pain in the @ss to get it together. That piece you are holding is supposed to prevent what you have from happening so first you need to get it reinstalled. So something happened to force that piece out of its designated location.

 

I’m trying to figure out how this works?

I believe that the 2 pieces that are plastic with nuts - are the slides and the limit stop for the up movement of the tilt/slide?

The metal piece that fell off, is the down travel limit stop?

And for the wheel to fall of and out of the slides, you need to have the tilt latch unlocked and the metal stop not in place. (Fell off or broken)
Or have the slides physically break off?

I’m also interested in how the metal piece that fell out is attached.
It looks like it just slides in and snaps in place by retention?


I think it’s probably NOT a good idea to use the steering wheel as an aid to pull yourself into the truck.
That can’t be good for it at all!

 

Exactly.

If you loosen the latch and jam it downward with enough force the limiter will pop out and you end up with the wheel in your lap.

 

Duct tape.

Seriously, suggest to have it towed to Toyota.

I wouldn't screw with a steering column. This is another bit of safety kit. Not just a way to turn the wheels or hold switches.........

 

This happened to me when I had my 08. I went to honk the horn and the whole steering column collapsed into my lap. I thought the telescoping adjustment lever had just popped open, but when I went to reset it the whole steering wheel assembly lifted right off. Thankfully I was on a neighborhood street at the time, I had been doing 85mph on the highway only 10 minutes earlier.

Toyota claimed they'd never heard of this happening and refused to accept any responsibility, even though I found multiple reports to the NHTSA of this happening before me and mutiple employees agreed that it should never happen. There were some plastic retainer clips that had broken which caused the whole mess, but Toyota wouldn't sell me the individual parts. Had to buy a whole new assembly which was expensive AF and the dealership screwed up installing it twice and damaged my truck in the process.

 

I took a peek at the parts manual and it calls the section in question as being the Steering Column Assembly and shows the following events and part number change:
45250-04220 05/2008 - 08/2011
45250-04221 09/2011 - 07/2015

A note appears that says the 45250-04221 part is the replacement for all 2005 - 2015.

 

Unfortunately this is a relatively common Tacoma issue. Most experience steering wheel slop or play, vertically. Mine had the same issue. Pull the plastic covers, remove 1 of the 2 nuts (which will be loose), add some Loctite and reinstall the nut. Repeat on the second nut. I had about 1.5" of vertical play before the fix. This procedure eliminated all movement.

Best of luck.