Helpful Links:
Steering Wheel Wiring
Cruise Control Mods
Parts Needed:
(I purchased all my parts off Ebay. I got lucky and found someone selling an IS300 steering wheel that already had a Toyota airbag in it (I'm assuming from a Rav4, but I'm not positive), and I messaged a seller to verify the clock spring/spiral cable had 6 pins before purchasing)
'01-'05 Lexus IS300 Steering Wheel with E-Shift - came with all automatics, manual transmission cars didn't have the E-Shift buttons
'01-'05 Lexus IS300 Clock Spring/Spiral Cable from a car with automatic transmission. The clock spring must have 6 pins in order for the steering wheel buttons to work.
Airbag that will fit the steering wheel and your airbag plug. There's a few options for this but I don't know them all or specific years. The Lexus IS300 should work, some Rav4s work, some Corollas, some Celicas, some Supras. If the plug on the airbag you get doesn't fit, there's a good chance you can remove the ignitor from the back of your airbag (4 nuts) and swap it onto the new airbag, but that's your call.
Pigtail wires from Toyota in order to use the steering wheel buttons. Part number 82998-12420, quantity 2.
Random wiring tools/supplies.
Process:
Steering Wheel Swap:
The steering wheel swap is very straight forward and will swap without any modifications. If all you want to do is change the wheel, you won't have to worry about the wiring. Without the wiring modifications, your horn and airbag will work. Cruise control will probably turn on but I don't think you'll be able to set or adjust a speed. The buttons on the wheel won't do anything.
To change the wheel:
- Center the steering wheel.
- Disconnect negative battery cable. Do this because we're disconnecting air bags and don't want to run into any problems.
- Remove the small round caps on the left and right side of the steering wheel with your fingernail or small flat head screw driver.
- Use a small torx bit to loosen the screws under these caps that hold the airbag. The screws should not fall out all the way. There's a retention clip that holds them in place when they're backed out.
- Carefully remove the airbag and disconnect the yellow plug. To disconnect the plug, slide the white part of the plug away from the connection, then pull the plug out.
- Disconnect the white plug inside the steering wheel.
- Using a
19mm socket, loosen the nut in the center of the steering wheel. Back the nut off a bit but don't remove it completely.
- To remove the steering wheel, you can use a puller if you want, but it isn't necessary. With the nut still on the shaft, grab the left and right side of the steering wheel and pull while wiggling left to right. The wheel should break loose after a few seconds and the nut will prevent it from coming completely off.
- Remove the nut completely and take off the steering wheel.
- Install the new steering wheel on the splined shaft, ensuring it is level.
- Install the nut on the end of the shaft. Torque is
25ft-lbs.
- Plug in the white connector.
- Plug in the airbag and place it in the steering wheel.
- Secure the airbag with the screws on the left and right side (if you care,
78in-lbs). My screws for the Lexus airbag were phillips, not torx
. You may have to hold the airbag out slightly. When I replaced the steering wheel on my Tacoma, the horn sounded continuously as soon as I reconnected the negative battery cable. Turns out the airbag was seated too far down and the horn connections were making contact inside the steering wheel.
- Reconnect negative battery cable.
Wiring:
Connectors:
There's a few problems with the wiring, mainly because the wiring doesn't quite match up.
- The 4Runner plug on the steering column has 4 wires.
- Green with red stripe - Horn
- Green with black stripe - Cruise control (on/off)
- Green - Cruise functions (resume/accel, set/coast, cancel)
- White with black stripe - Ground
- Empty slot
- Empty slot
- The 4Runner plug on the steering wheel has 4 wires.
- Empty slot
- Empty slot
- White with black stripe - Ground
- Red - Cruise functions (resume/accel, set/coast, cancel)
- White - Cruise (on/off)
- Red (far right) - Horn
- The clock spring/spiral cable on the 4Runner has 4 pins, because the 4Runner has 4 wires. The clock spring/spiral cable on the IS300 has 6 pins but only 5 of them are used.
- The IS300 has 7 wires that use 5 pins.
- 2 wires, White and Black - Downshift
- 2 wires, Red and Blue - Upshift
- Empty slot
- Yellow - Ground
- Red with black stripe - Cruise (all functions)
- Blue with red stripes - Horn (mine is black in the pictures because there was damage to the wire casing, so I covered it with heat shrink)
Cruise Control:
Looking at the info above, you can see that the 4Runner uses 3 wires for the cruise control (ground, cruise on/off, and cruise functions). The IS300 only uses 2 wires for the cruise control (ground and cruise functions).
The cruise switches use resistors to control the different functions. The 4Runner cruise control switch and IS300 switch have different resistance values. These resistors need to be switched so the 4Runner computer gets the correct signals.