clock spring

[ckdxr]

Has anyone out there needed to replace the clock spring behind your steering wheel which supplies power to your cruise control, horn and airbag. have only recently replaced mine at $390 bucks and now its shit itself again.

 

[Old.Tony]

No problem with mine so far but mine's still well inside its warranty period (not quite a year old) and only has 31,000km on the clock.

How old is yours, how many km on it? I'd like to see what Nizzbits says about the cost of that thing, $390 is just ludicrous.

 

[Matt76]

How did you know it was buggered mate? I guess the cruise and horn stopped working?

 

[KraftyPg]

$390 would go a long way to explaining why my dealer reckons the steering wheel they replaced under warranty (for the sake of a few bit of peeling paint) was $1200 RRP. Still with some of the parts I priced this week at Nissan I'm not overly suprised.

 

[ckdxr]

was happy to pay the price to get the cruise working again. nissan diagnosed the fault so i bought the part and installed myself which is a basic job. Now i have the problem of finding out why another has failed. must be getting a spike from somewhere but could be a mission. Sucks when the nearest dealership or auto sparky is 400 kays away.
Any ideas where to look first? The car is under used car warranty but id rather fix it myself than deal with the tight fisted tossers.

 

[Old.Tony]

I'm wondering what the deal with the spring is. Has the spring collapsed? Has the metal lost its spring quality? Is it an electrical failure, that might not be the spring itself, but where the spring connects?

 

[ckdxr]

well Old Tony ist not exactly a spring as such although the name would suggest. its more of a resin sealed electrical module which mounts under the steering wheel. for some reason nissan call it a clock spring, there wouldnt be a spring in it at all.
you may have seen older cars where they run a brass ring under the steering wheel and a brush with a spring on the steering wheel to conduct power to the horn well this is nothing like that. not real sure how it works, must induce a current to a pickup in the steering wheel or something????

 

[Dion]

for some reason nissan call it a clock spring, there wouldnt be a spring in it at all.

In some interpretations of early airbags coils of wire ("a clock spring") that could tolerate the entire lock to lock rotation of the wheel without exceeding yield strength were used to provide current to the airbag detonator.

 

[Old.Tony]

The manual calls it a "spiral cable". It looks like it connects the entire indicator/wiper "combination assembly" to the car. It may also include the stereo and cruise control wires. There is no indication about the air bag wiring but that could be included too.

There are specific instructions on how to install this cable so that it isn't damaged during vehicle operation.

Make sure that the spiral cable is in the neutral position. The neutral
position is detected by turning left 2.6 revolutions from the right end
position and ending with the locating pin at the top.

CAUTION:
Do not run spiral cable idle needlessly. And do not turn it more
than necessary (or it leads to disconnection of the cable).

There's little else of value in the manual.

 

[ckdxr]

the cable stayed in place and the clock spring module just plugs into it but i will check the plug asap. cheers for the info

 

[Nizzbits]

I didn't know they had anything to do with the cruise to be honest.
However as per the instructions above if it is not installed correctly (especially the x turns thing) the first time you hit full lock it will crap itself. If that happens time to throw it in the bin and shell out for another one and install correctly.

 

[scottybobcat]

It runs sterio,cruise and airbag threw it.Ring Niss 4x4 in Williamstown in Victoria if Nizzbits can't help you,he has a heap of 2nd hand ones there.03 9399 9771.Mention the forum and me and he will look after you and he will send anywhere in oz.