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Car: 1989 Civic DX hatchback

Common enough problem: Stuck the key in one day, can't turn ignition out of the 0 position, and no amount of oiling, key jiggling, steering jiggling, rolling the car around, cursing and swearing has helped. Maybe weird in that there was no hint of key problems before this moment, but somehow, something went wonky.

Solution seems obvious enough: Replace the ignition lock. But this is complicated by the fact I can't turn it to the 1 position where it will release the lock pin and let the cylinder slide out of the housing. Also, as a result of above jiggling (it did not precede the lock getting stuck, it followed it), the steering lock is activated.

So, after much scouring of Internet forums and help pages, two questions remain:

1. Am I right in thinking all I should have to do to get the lock cylinder out is drill out the little pin on top? And if I can do that with minimal damage to the lock housing, I don't have to replace the whole assembly, I hope? I've found how to do that if I have to, but I'd really rather save the money.

2. Does the activated steering lock affect removal of the cylinder? Can I still remove it by drilling out the pin, and once I do, will unlocking the steering be a simple matter of manually pushing something inside the housing, or else inserting the new lock cylinder and turning it? I don't know what the connection from the steering lock to ignition lock is -- even whether it's electrical or mechanical.

Much obliged for any help.

adam

 
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well yeah sounds like you need new lock cylinder. im not sure on how to get the old one out tho. did you try jiggling the wheel back and forth while turning the key?

 
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well, when mine locked up i had to push my key in and turn it.

 
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yea that happened to me but not even close to that severe, all i had to do is what gearbox said and wiggle the steering wheel while turning the key. good luck with that adam.

 
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I had a similar problem, and called a locksmith to re-key the ignition.
it was cheap, And i worked perfectly.

 
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to get the ignition barrel out you have to pull the cover off and drill out two rivets I believe they are up top. probly the pins wore out in the lock or maybe you got something stuck in it. You can always drill a screw into the lock hook up a slide hammer and let er fly. ahhh the good old days.... lol

I don't recommend you do that though take it to a lock smith or a honda dealership

 
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Thanks to all for the input. I just got everything off, with some damage to the lock housing but nothing that impedes its function, so now I'm able to just replace the lock cylinder for 50 bucks and not the whole steering lock assembly, which was my goal. It didn't go quite as easily as I wanted (it never does), so here's a few notes for others:

1. To get a good angle on drilling out the pin that keeps the cylinder in, I had to remove the whole assembly. To do that, I didn't like the "bang the headless bolts with the center punch" method I found on the net; instead I just Dremeled a groove in each bolt and unscrewed it.

2. Drilling out the pin doesn't really work, because eventually the pin just spins freely with the drill bit. I ended up slicing (Dremel with cutting wheel) into the back end of the housing, the end away from the key, and through the pin, which still didn't let the pin fall out as I'd hoped, but did let it fall *in* enough so it no longer caught the housing.

3. The cylinder then came out easily, once the steering lock "button" was pushed in. So I really couldn't have done this without removing the whole assembly from the steering column.

Now I'll either find some new snap-off-head bolts for the steering column bracket, or grind off the grooves I made after reinstallation. Voila.

adam

 
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Adam, I had to sign up for this forum to thank you. I was going to drill out the whole barrel assembly, which would have been real messy with much chance for ruining the housing, drilling out the little pin was so much easier. Duh.
I used a Dremel with a pointed metal burr, was able to keep the pin from spinning by going at the pin off-center. Didn't take too long. The postmortem took longer, showed that the lock had nothing wrong with it or stuck in it, the tumblers had just worn down. "It all worked fine until it didn't work anymore".

One other note - I was able to get those headless bolts out with a pair of needlenose ViseGrips. One of those tools you almost never need...

Thanks again for posting!

p.s. Do you really need to put in headless bolts? Is anybody going to try to steal your '89?