1996 GMC C3500 Truck with 1st Design Ignition Starter Switch TRQ SWA41612

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In this video, we're going to be working with our 1996 GMC Sierra K1500. We're going to show you how to remove and replace your vehicle's ignition switch and wiring harness.

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Here are the items you'll need for this repair.

Remove the negative post from your battery using a 5/16s or an eight millimeter wrench. Be very careful, this wrench isn't long enough but if you have a longer one, you may be able to hit the positive battery terminal with it. You want to be very careful you don't do that. Remove the terminal and isolate it from the battery.

Now just so you can see, because it's pretty difficult to show on the back of the steering wheel, there are these notched pins, all four of them on the airbag and these sit in these four holes. What I did to release them is there's openings in the back you can reach through, the flat blade screwdriver and pry them up and out of the way. Pretty difficult to get back there and see that, but you just need to reach in there and pry it out of the way with your screwdriver and it'll pop itself up. Remove the airbag.

There's a little hook on the harness, you need to disconnect to get this out all the way. Remove the orange safety. You may need a screwdriver to release the electrical connector here. Put your seatbelt through the steering wheel. This will help to hold it while you break the 21-millimeter bolt in the center loose. Release your seatbelt and remove it from the wheel. Make sure that the steering wheel is nice and straight and flat. Finish removing the 21-millimeter nut and wiggle the wheel or hit the back sides.

Now if you can't just knock the steering wheel off by hand, you can use a steering wheel polar. This is actually kind of a universal polar. These are available from 1AAuto.com, the same one we have here and it comes with a variety of bolts so pick the ones that fit your vehicle.

Go ahead and thread them all the way and you can just do this by hand, because they'll bottom out in there. If you try to get them much tighter than that, you could risk damaging something underneath. Once those are in, install the center bolt, tighten that down until it bottoms out on the center bolt of the steering wheel. I'm going to try to keep this straight using a 19 millimeter socket and ratchet and holding the wheel straight, tighten down the center bolt. Once it comes free, the wheels should come off pretty easily. Carefully remove the steering wheel. Slide the wire for the airbag clock spring through it.

Remove the snap ring on the clock spring with a pair of snap ring pliers. Simply put the tips of the pliers into the openings on the snap ring. Spread the snap ring and lift it up out of its grooves. Slide the snap ring off. If you have a tilt steering column, make sure that it is tilted all the way up. Grab the lever firmly. Pull that out. Remove the two T25 Torx on the bottom of your steering column cover. Pull down to separate your column, and then push in and pull out to release these hooks in the back.

Now there are two of these inverted T5 Torx that you need, an E5 inverted Torx socket to remove. However, if you have a 6.4 millimeter that's on there pretty snug and as long as you go careful, you should be able to spin them right out. Reinstall the lever for your tilt column if equipped. Push down and remove the lever again, so you don't bump it. It's hard to show and we'll show you when the piece is removed, but there's a small hole in the top of the ignition cylinder that you can get with a hooked pick.

I'm looking through the hole for the hazard switch to see this. What you need to do is push down on that. You want to hold your key like you're trying to start it and then push down on that little hole. You'll feel it released. Slide it out as far as it will go and turn it back some. Remove it fully so you can remove your steering column upper cover.

Just to give you a better idea of what we were doing with that cover on top, and yours will be right here blocking your view, but you can look through. Reach into this hole, key to the start position, push down, pull out, remove your pick, rotate backwards, and remove your cylinder.

Remove the four 7 mm screws along the bottom knee panel of the dashboard with a 7mm socket and ratchet. We have some, it looks like, wood screws and some little machine screws that have been put in here. It looks like they might be for an old break controller for the trailer or something like that. I may have to remove these, but they shouldn't be there on your vehicle.

Now all along the top of the knee panel and the dash there are some plastic clips, so we just have to pop those out. Pull out your e-brake release handle as far as you can, and use a small flat-blade screwdriver to compress the tabs. There's one on each side. We're not going to be able to show you the one on the inside of the panel, just because of the way the dash is shaped, but it's on the opposite side of this clip. Then you should be able to turn the e-brake and slide the cable out to remove your knee panel.

Remove the four 10mm bolts holding the metal knee panel to the dash with a 10mm socket and ratchet. Remove the metal knee panel from the dash.

Using a small flat blade screwdriver, release the tab and rotate this sensor out of its opening. This is the little sensor that recognizes your key is in the ignition, so it will bing so you don't forget it in there. You'll then need to remove the two E4 inverted torques. These cannot be removed with a regular hex socket like we've showed you on other tricks. For this one you're actually going to need an E4 inverted torque socket and a ratchet, a long E4 inverted torque would be ideal, however as long as you're careful and you don't put too much pressure against the plastic switch, you should be able to remove them with a regular one. Carefully remove the switch from the column.

We'll now need to remove it from the wiring harness going down into the dash. Clip any zip ties that are holding it together. I'm just going to remove this dash vent so I can see a little bit better. Peel open the wrap around the harness. This is kind of just like a really wide electrical tape. You can just peel that off.

Go through the opening in the dash where the center vent was and remove the 7 millimeter bolt in the middle of the ignition switch harness. On the side of the connector for the ignition switch and your multifunction switch is another 7 millimeter screw you'll need to remove. Once that's out, you can slide that connector up and remove the harness. At the front of the switch, on this side of the connector, pry up and slide the side connectors out of the main connector, and remove the harness and ignition switch from the column.

Here we have our old ignition switch and wiring harness that we removed from our truck, and our new part from 1AAuto.com. As you can see, these parts are exactly the same. We have the same OE colored wiring harness. We have the same switch body, the same connection at the bottom here, which even includes the slots for sliding the rest of the electrical connections at the bottom end with the new captured bolt to secure our connector into place, and the new sensor which is topped here. We'll top that out, which alerts you when your key is in the ignition and creates that dinging sound to make sure you don't forget your keys.

These switches can get worn out or the wires can get damaged or broken. This new piece from 1A Auto will replace the entire assembly, meaning that anything that's gone wrong in this portion of your ignition control will all be repaired from top to bottom here. It will go in direct fit, just like our original equipment, and fix you up right.

There was nothing wrong with our old ignition switch, so rather than wasting a nice, new part, we're going to go ahead and reinstall the old one. The process will be the same as installing your new switch.

All you do is slide it down under the steering column. I'm going to start up here just to make things a little easier. Make sure that the keyway in your ignition cylinder is lined up. There we go. Then reinstall our two E4 inverted torque screws. Reinstall the key switch. That little point facing in here will fall into the opening, and rotate it until it locks.

Slide the multifunction switch harnesses back into their slots until they lock in on the ignition switch harness. We'll then push back up on the receptacle and set the connector back into place. This should go in at least partially before we slide the receptacle back down into its bracket and tighten our screw back up with our 7 millimeter socket and ratchet. Don't forget the 7 millimeter screw on the side of the plug receptacle. Re-secure all of the harnesses here. Then we'll throw a few zip ties back on there where we cut them out from the top and bottom.

Reattach your vent. Reinstall the steel support for the knee panel and the four 10 mm screws. Tighten down the bolts with the 10mm socket and ratchet. Pull your e-brake cable back through the opening and twist it, it'll lock it back into place. Line up your clips, these ones on the dash vent you should pop in first. Once the clips are in, reinstall all four of the 7mm screws. Pop your e-brake release handle back into place.

Reinstall the upper half of your steering column cover. Be sure to line up this little rubber boot for your gear selector lever. Just line up the channels and slide it in there. This is the detent that we had to hit on the ignition cylinder. Slide that back in. Make sure your key isn't all the way before you start doing this. Slide it all the way in, turn it forward and back to make sure it engages.

Reinstall your tilt lever. Place one hand firmly on top of the steering column. Release the lever and slowly allow it to go up. One thing you don't want to do, and I'm just going to do this for demonstration purposes, is just release the lever because that thing really moves. If this isn't aligned, well your shift is not in the right place, you've left a tool in there or even worse if your fingers were in here for some reason, that's going to do some damage. Make sure you let it go up slowly so you can reinstall your lower cover.

Reinstall your two E5 inverted Torx screws into the upper steering column cover. Remove the tilt latch rod again and now these hooks need to slide in and under and then pull forward to engage. Line up the lower boot for your gear selector after you've set the hooks in the back of your column cover. Snap everything back into place. Once it's lined up, reinstall your to two T25 Torx screws on the bottom of the column.

Reinstall your tilt lever. Carefully reinstall the harness for your clock spring, and then pull the alignment pin out of your new part.

Reinstall your wheel onto the splines. Now, one of the cool things about these wheels is they have a keyed spline so you can see I can't get it on, and then it lines up and falls right in. Install the 21 millimeter nut as tight as you can. Torque the steering wheel nut to 29 foot pounds.

Make sure to attach the harness back into its clips, as well as the one on the airbag, but we'll reconnect our connector and install our safety tab first. Slide the bag into place, and just push it in firmly to engage all four clips.

The most important step anytime you work on your airbags or anything that has to do with the airbag system, just put your key in, turn it to the run position, then reconnect your negative battery terminal. Remember to tighten this down with a 5/16s wrench. Now the reason we do this in the order that we did is power just came back on in the vehicle and our key is already on.

If anything bad had happened with the airbag like it shaved wire or some other issue, the bag would have deployed now while we're out here safely under the hood, rather than once we get the vehicle and turn the key and we're sitting right in front of it. While airbags are meant as a safety device in improper conditions, they can be very dangerous.

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