SCIROCCO REGISTER FAQ

How to replace Steering Lock & Housing

Unfortunately, this job had to be done after the car was a victim of an attempted theft, but this applies if you are changing your locks for whatever reason.  In true Scirocco Register style, the procedure is documented here..

Suitable for both Mk1 and Mk2 vehicles.

Tools required:
24mm socket & ratchet
deep 22mm socket for hitting things
Medium flat blade screwdriver
Small philips screwdriver
Molegrips
Allen key – 6mm (I think)
hammer/weighty object.

Parts required:
Steering lock housing (VW: 155 905 851)
steering lock barrel (VW: 191 905 855)

Materials required:
LM Grease or similar
100mm cable tie

 

Method

First step is to remove the steering wheel.  Now you can see the big lump of housing that’s missing, I think it’s under the drivers-seat somewhere

 

 

 

 

Here it is from below:
Get your flat-blade screwdriver out and carefully prise off the multi-connectors

 

Be careful as some of the pins will be live, and unless you like welding your tools to your car, you’d best be careful not to touch more than 1 pin at a time with it.

 

Here we are with the stalk switches removed.

Remember there’s 3 multi connectors for the stalk switches – a lot of folks forget the flasher switch connector, which you can just see to the left of the column. To make life easier, cut the cable tie that’s holding the looms onto the steering column.

 

 

 

Remove the spacer sleeve – this is plastic and a tight fit:

Mole-grips do a good job of hanging onto it, whereas screwdrivers would probably just munge up the back edge. It wasn’t marked that much by the grips.

 

 

 

Remove the short pinch-bolt from the left hand side, make sure the steering lock is off, and you’re ready to simply pull the housing off: 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the steering column without the ignition barrel housing.

You can see the connector for the ignition switch to the right – due to the thickness of the cable attached to it, it was easier to disconnect this as the lock housing was being slid off the column.

 

 

 

Here’s the ignition switch from behind:  

 

The small screw is all that is retaining the switch in the housing. Whip that bad boy out and the switch should pull free without hassle.

 

 

Here’s the new housing, lubed up and ready to go:

 

 

 

 

 

New lock going in:

 It’s pretty fiddly (fairly lax tolerances in these aftermarket parts ), and you’ve also got to push the steering lock in (it’s spring loaded) to enable you to get the lock barrel in. After a few minutes cussing it was together. Make sure the spigot on the end of the lock barrel is aligned correctly and slide the switch into the back of the housing. Replace the little screw holding it in.

 

 

Refitting the lock housing:
The housing will need to be carefully prised open with a screwdriver between the pinch-flanges (where the bolt goes), then it’ll easily slide onto the column, keep the keys in to prevent the steering lock engaging at the wrong moment.

 

Stick the pinch bolt in, but don’t tighten it up yet.

 

Use a screwdriver as a drift, tap the housing back so it sits at the back of the flange on the column, when it’s as far back as it’ll go you can tighten up the pinch bolt.
 

 

 

 

 

Refit the spacer sleeve.  Use a deep socket (22mm) over the column and hammer/something heavy to drive the sleeve back onto the column as far as it will go. 

Refit the switches and steering wheel, and bobs your uncle, job done.

Give the horn and all the other gubbins a quick test before hitting the road, of course..

A note about parts:
I got the bits for the job from GSF, they weren’t dear, but the quality was a bit rough, this was apparent by the difficulty I had in reassembling it.  In hindsight I’d probably go to the VW dealers for genuine parts if they had them, as I reckon I’d also have the option of getting the ignition key to the same pattern as the door key.

Throughout the reassembly I worked the key and switch mechanism to make sure that it was free to move as intended, during this period it loosened up a bit, but is still stiff.

All in all, it took me a couple of hours, now that I know what to do, I reckon I could do it in an hour now, less if the parts went together easier.

Hope y’all find this useful.  Contributor:

Forum user skyrocketeer

Tags: electrics, ignition, mk1, Mk2