How to Remove Steering Wheel 2008-12 Ford Escape

What's up, guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. In this video, I'm going to show you how to replace the steering wheel on this 2012 Ford Escape. If you need parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description, and head over to 1aauto.com.

We're going to disconnect the battery. I'll use an 8 millimeter socket and a ratchet. Loosen this up, the negative battery terminal. Once it's loose, grab it and pull it off. Set it out of the way.

We're going to use this hex wrench, and underneath the airbag, there's a little hole, right there. This happens to be a 2.5 millimeter hex wrench. You're going to feel around. If you can grab on it, and you can watch the air bag move, you're too far forward. You're going to back up just a little bit, and then there will be something to push on. It's a spring. It might help out if you push on the air bag a little bit. And then it releases. You can slide the air bag up. And let me just show you what that looks like inside here. That's pushing on this spring, right here. When you push it up, there's clips right there that get pushed in. Just like that.

All right. On the back of the air bag, we want to disconnect this connector right here. Just take a straight blade screwdriver and push. There we go. Disconnected it, it was just clipped on there pretty hard. Now disconnect the airbag connectors, just squeeze the little tabs. You can use a straight blade screwdriver if you have to. Push in the lock tabs and slide them out. Same with this one. And slide it out. Grab the airbag. When you place the airbag, you want to place it facing up. You never want to place it on its face, because if it does go off, then it'll go flying.

All right, I want to disconnect this connector right here. We'll use a straight blade screwdriver or a pocket screwdriver. Just push on the connector, disconnect that. Now when we pull the steering wheel off, this wire is going to go through there. Take a T-50 extension and ratchet, I'll take this bolt off. I'm going to hold the steering wheel while I loosen this up. This might be hard to do. Try holding it with my knees. There we go.

All right, I'm just going to take this bolt, I'm not going to take it out all the way, like I just did. I'm just going to put a couple threads on, and I'm going to grab the wheel, and just rock it back and forth. The reason why I leave it on there is so when the wheel releases, it doesn't hit me in the face.

And there it goes. Pulled off. Now I can take that off. Now you could use a steering wheel puller--there's two holes right there and then you can pull it off, but this way works, as well. You just got to be careful not to bed then wheel. Don't grab it from the top too much, more on the sides, and just rock it back and forth. Slide that out. Just like that.

Okay, I don't want this clock spring to spin while I have the steering wheel out. If this spins multiple times, it's going to end up breaking. So what I'll do is take some tape and just tape it to the center there. It's not going to hold it really, really good, but it'll at least keep it from spinning. So that's good enough.

I'm going to install the steering. I will take this tape off. And slide this wiring harness through here. And there is some slots for the steering wheel to go in the shaft, and it'll only line up one way, so that's good. Take the bolt. Get that started. And I'm going to take a T-50 extension and a ratchet, and I'm just going to tighten this down.

I'm going to use a torque wrench, and I'm going to torque this to 30 foot-pounds. Take this connector, and you can just slide that into position, lock it in place.

Now we're going to connect the airbag. This white connector's going to go right here with the yellow one. And the black one goes to the green. Lock those in, and then we'll lock this last connector in. And lock it in place.

All right, now we want to make sure this wire is out of the way. Stow the airbag in position, and just with both hands, push it. And it's good to go.

Take the negative battery terminal. Reconnect it to the battery. And then take the 8 millimeter socket and ratchet and we'll snug this up. Just grab the cable, wiggle it, make sure it's nice and tight.

Thanks for watching. Visit 1aauto.com for quality auto parts shipped to your door. The place for DIY auto repair. And if you enjoyed this video, please click the Subscribe button.