- Joined
- May 16, 2006
- Messages
- 2,724
This being New York City, I don't usually keep tools in my car, so today when I went to move my car to the other side of the street and found that the linkage behind the ignition lock cylinder had broken, rendering the car inoperable, I found myself in a bit of a jam. I did thankfully have a Squirt PS4 attached to my keys. First order of business, pull lock cylinder. I scrounged up a paper clip from the glove compartment and after 20 minutes of cursing finally got the cylinder to pop out. Next step, remove shift lock cable from the housing so I could put the car in Drive. The little pliers on the Squirt easily unbolted the cable. Then I used the pliers to extract the remains of the cracked rod inside. After a little inspection it was clear I'd never be able to turn the engine over without a long properly sized screwdriver, so I chose option two - hot wire the car. I used the little screwdriver on the squirt to pry off the cover on the underside of the steering column. Then I used the wire cutters to cut the four wires off the broken ignition housing. I then used the little knife blade to trim off the rubber on the ends of the wires and played around with them till I figured out how to get the engine to turn over. I used the pliers to twist the hot lead and two other wires together tightly and touched the fourth wire to the group and voila the car started up. Now all I had to do was press on the end of the shift lock cable and put the car in drive and then stick my finger down the tube which had housed the lock cylinder and release the steering lock. I then drove the car to the other side of the street, thereby avoiding a ticket tomorrow morning 
The repair job looks to be a big pain in the butt and I haven't decided whether I'll tackle it myself or not but thanks to the Squirt I was able to get the car mobile again :thumbup:
The repair job looks to be a big pain in the butt and I haven't decided whether I'll tackle it myself or not but thanks to the Squirt I was able to get the car mobile again :thumbup: