How to Remove Steering Wheel 2005-16 Toyota RAV4

What's up guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. In this video I'm going to show you how to replace this steering wheel on this 2010 Toyota RAV4. If you need parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description and head over to 1aauto.com.

Disconnect the negative battery terminal. We'll use a 10 millimeter wrench. Loosen this nut up and pull the connection off and set this aside. You don't want this to arc out on the battery, so make sure it doesn't spring back. On the side of the steering wheel. There's a hole right here and there's also one on the other side. I'm going to take a T30 driver and you're going to find there's a screw in there, so it may take a little bit to find it, but once you find it, loosen it up.

It's on there pretty tight. There we go. And the screw's not going to come out. It's just going to loosen up so that you can pull the airbag off. All right, that's good. Then I'll do the same on the other side. There we go. With that loose, grab the airbag. We can disconnect the connectors. This connector right here, just grab that and try to pull this out just like that. And then these two connectors, for these two connectors, I'm just going to use a pick and you want to pull this center piece up first here. Try to get under here. There's a little lock, lock tab just like that. Once you get that up, you can get underneath the connector and slide it out. Just be careful not to break these. Just like that. Then you can grab the airbag. When you place the airbag down, place it with the top of it facing up just in case it goes off. You don't want it this way, you don't want it to go off that way.

We're going to disconnect these wires right here. Disconnect this one, push down on the tab, slide that aside, and then also we'll disconnect this one as well. Push down on that tab, slide it out. This wire right here, we'll leave that attached. I want to take this nut off. I'm going to use a 19 millimeter socket and a ratchet. I'm going to hold the steering wheel with my other arm and loosen that up. I Should be able to do it by hand. Take that nut. I'm just going to loosen the nut, not quite all the way off. Then I'm just going to grab the steering wheel, give it a shake back and forth. The reason you leave the nut on there is so that when it releases, the steering wheel doesn't hit you in the face. So that's released. You can also use a puller, you can thread in the puller right there and then press it off, but you don't necessarily need a puller. Take the nut off.

Now before you take the steering wheel off, now the steering wheel is not keyed, so you could actually take it off and move it over a little and it's still going to go on fine. So what you want to do before you take this off completely, just take a little felt tip pen and just mark where the steering wheel goes. Okay. Then once you go to put it back on, you're going to know that it's not in the right position. So that way you get it back to where it was. Pull this off.

Slide these wires through here. Make sure the clock spring doesn't spin, then line the steering wheel up with the mark that you need before you took it off. I'm going to take this steering wheel nut, the nut behind the wheel. Tighten that nut down. Then I'm going to take a 19 millimeter socket and a torque wrench. Torque this nut to 37 foot-pounds. There we go. All right, now I'm just going to connect the smaller connector right here that goes to the cruise control switch, and then this bigger connector that connects to the steering wheel button right there. Now we want to plug these connectors in. Make sure you don't twist these all on. I'm actually going to connect this black wire right here first. It's actually the ground for the horn. That's what makes the morning work and plug the orange connector on the orange side just like that. Lock it in place, and then the black one on the black side and lock it in place. And just make sure those wires aren't twisted, anything weird. They look good.

Just line this up, goes right there, and take your T30 driver. We're going to do one side at a time. Get that on there, tighten that up, and now we'll tighten up the other side. So I'm just tightening these up. Make sure they're good snug. Now if you have the ability to use a torque wrench, you're going to torque these to 78 inch-pounds. I'm not going to be able to do that because I can't put a torque wrench on the end of my driver, but I'm just doing the best I can. Let's reattach the negative cable and take your 10 millimeter wrench. Tighten this up, snug that up. Just wiggle it, make sure it's nice and tight and you're good to go.

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