2002 Mazda Steering column stuck in up position?

Answer 1

My '02 Millennia S tilt column got stuck in the up position as well. Actuating the toggle switch produced a clicking sound, which sounded like a relay, but no motion of the wheel. There was no whirring sound of a free spinning motor, no humming sound like a jammed or shorted motor, no gearbox grinding sounds, and no obvious power draw on the car's electrical system. The dealer's first guess at a diagnosis was a faulty motor, but because of the symptoms and the fact that the tilt feature has hardly ever been used, I was skeptical. They estimated the repair at $1100.

Since I don't use the tilt feature, I just wanted to get the wheel back down to a normal driving position.

The Fix:

There are two cables associated with the column tilt motor and its position sensor. The cables' connectors are mounted side by side to a bracket under the column directly behind the motor drive assembly. The cable connector nearest the wheel has two large gauge wires: one red and the other blue. The other cable has three smaller gauge wires: two grey & black and the third green.

The larger gauge connector is the motor power cable, the other is for the tilt position sensor.

Disconnect the harness cable connected the motor power cable by pulling it downward. The harness cable you pulled off goes to a relay that operates the motor. To actuate the motor, you will want to apply 12V power to the connector end still attached to the bracket.

Polarity: when the power cable connector is still mated to the connector harness, the red wire will be towards the front of the car and the blue will be towards the back, closest to the wheel. Applying +12Volts to the connector blade attached to the red wire and ground to the other blade will cause the wheel to go up. Reversing the polarity will make the wheel go down. So to make the wheel go down, you will want to put ground on the engine-side connector blade and +12V on the blade closest to the wheel.

I used a 12V battery charger, set in the 10Amp position, as a source of 12V power, but the car battery itself would work just as well. I connected a 1 foot length of 12Gauge, insulated solid conductor bell wire to each of the battery charger clamps, by wrapping the stripped wire ends around one jaw of the clamp multiple times, and then wrapped the clamps with electrical tape to prevent shorting.

I stripped about a ¼ inch from the other end of the wires. I used electrical tape wrapped around the two wires about ¾" of an inch from the stripped ends to set the ends at the proper spacing to contact the two connector blades---about 3/8" of an inch apart.

Carefully line up the stripped wires ends with the blades and apply them briefly. You will see a spark and hopefully the motor will spin and the wheel will come down. A second or so of actuation is all that you will need. If you just get a humming sound from the motor, try reversing the polarity a few times with short power applications to free up the motor/gearbox assembly. When I first tried it, I had the battery charger set on the 2 Amp setting and the motor didn't spin. Moving the charger to the 10Amp setting produced a bigger spark and the motor spun freely.