Steering wheel spacer fitted on Toyota Yaris T-Sport 2003, step-by-step driving
Do-it-yourself guide to installing the spacer on the steering wheel
We start our blog with a step-by-step installation guide created by a Finnish customer who bought our steering wheel spacer and shared the entire installation process with us.
A typical collaboration with our customers: if we do not yet have photos of a steering wheel spacer installed on a specific car (in this case an old Yaris T-Sport), in exchange for apartial refund, those who buy it send at least 4 good quality photos to be used on this site.
The collaborations don’t stop here: in this case, our customer patiently started writing a real small instruction manual, complete with photos.
We report it as it is, without corrections. Also because there is no need.
The client is Onni from Finland, so the text is in English.
… So here are my pictures, and also additional notes, that I found helpful:
- 1. disconnect the battery . and wait around 15 minutes.
- 2. make sure your steering wheel is straight, because then it is easier to put it back in correct position.
- 3. Unscrew Two Torx Screws. To fully disengage them from airbag frame, push that plastic around the screws towards inside. There are some plastic clips, that pull screws out from the airbag frame. Lay the airbag unit face side up in a safe place.
- 4. carefully remove airbag wire connector by first lifting yellow safety lid with small screwdriver and then remove connector itself. Then you need to remove also connector for radio buttons (blue) and you can also remove grounding wire at this point from steering wheel frame.
- 5. Open the steering wheel center nut without removing it completely yet. So you can pull it without hitting you head, when it comes loose.
- 6. You can just pull steering wheel off with hand, by pulling it from one side at a time, and giving it some sharp / hard pulls. I decided to use universal extractor, which can be attached to two M8 screw holes. If you use extractor, you will need to remove screw holding the radio button module in place Universal extractor in picture below.
- 7. once you have got steering wheel off, you can insert aluminium side of the steering wheel spacer in place, and tighten it’s central nut to 40 Nm
- 8. Then you can fit the splined steel piece to aluminium piece using bolts provided with spacer, use loctite 243 thread locker. Tighten bolts to 10 Nm.
- 9. Then you can fit the steering wheel back in place. It is needed to re-route wire from radio button module to it’s connector from backside of the wheel frame (between plastic wheel cover and steering wheel frame piece), as it’s pretty short. That re-routing makes grounding wire too short (highlighted here in orange), so it will need some extension. grounding wire extension in picture below After re-routing radio button -wire and making extension to grounding wire, they can be attached to their connectors.
- 10. Then you can connect airbag connector back to airbag unit, and push that yellow clip back in place. Then place airbag in it’s place, and tighten two torx screws back in place. And after all you can connect car’s battery.
- 11. Ready.