Serious Help Needed. YJ Actuator pin?

L

Luckykit

Member
This thing inside the steering column of my 1988 yj 4.2l broke. It's the thing that the ignition switch sits on. What is it called? What are my best options for fixing it? Some guy on youtube did a whole hotwire instead of fixing this. One forum said you have to buy a whole steering column at $700. I'm having doubts. This can't be real. ANY ideas on this is greatly appreciated. TY, igni.jpginside.jpg
 
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I believe there is a misunderstanding. I'm holding the key cylinder in my hand. The cylinder has a female end that goes into the column, and there is a little plastic piece deep inside the column that is broke. I suspect its called a sector gear based upon
 
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Ohhhhh, you're talking about the lever to raise whatever to put steering column into a locked position.

I'm sorry, I thought your ignition cylinder had broke and part of it was still in the column.
 
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Luckykit said:
I've found the part. It is like a rack and pinion inside the column that moves a bar up and down.

ExtremeTerrain

www.extremeterrain.com www.extremeterrain.com

Have any of you had to replace this? as in... what is the process? ty.
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do a YouTube search, there are several YJ steering column videos that go over replacing that part.
Unless you're replacing the entire mechanism that goes with that part you shouldn't have to pull the column
 
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I want to share this video link in case others find themselves in this position. I am pretty sure the jeep yj shares the column with gm because this thing is similar to my jeep's I do not have the column shifter though. It looks like I can jut pull the old one out and put the new one in "yay!". The piece in question is at 6:34 in the vid, and he clearly just slides it in. The problem that caused this is that to engage the starter, I seemed to have to put a lot of pressure on the key, which in turn suggests the ignition switch needed to be moved up or down. Or, someone changed the switch, but used a tilt switch instead of no-tilt. I don't know. I've decided to change that switch as well just to be safe. When I install the switch, I'll spend the extra time to make sure there it is correctly adjusted and there is no undue force. Wish me luck.

 
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Update 02/16/25. I refurbished the column, and it will got back in the jeep tomorrow. I dug in and found broken parts. The spring for the key release was broken, and im pretty sure it had a hand in the failures. However, the sector gear had completely broken. I think someone may have tried to glue is back together with something. If you find yourself in this position having to rebuilt a steering column, here are a few things i've learned. 1. take the column out instead of trying to fix anything in the jeep. Takes about 10 minutes. 2. Paint the key release spring white straight away. I dropped mine about 20 times in very comical fashion. 3. If your spring is broken, don't bother trying to find it. No one has it. Go to a hardware store and pick up similar sized springs and modify one to work. It'll save you time. 4. Getting the sector gear to align with the pinion is easier than you think. I stressed on this. 5. My shaft was slightly larger than the replacement sector gear. I threw it in a drill and lathed it with 800grit for a perfect fit. Have a great day.
 
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