I've bought a gorgeous, original 97 XJ-L which I adore. The one irritating thing I've noticed is the automatic steering column is stuck in the furthest forward position and stays that way. It won't extend manually or via any preprogrammed method. Upon door opening, it does the usual lift up and it will manually go up and down but that's it. The motor whirls for the fore and aft adjustment but nothing happens.
As I'm the only driver of the car, I'd like the steering wheel closer to me and don't care if it is adjustable after that. Has anyone successfully pulled, adjusted, or moved the column forward and then somehow locked it in that position? From what I've read on the forums, this is a reasonably common occurrence with the column but I've not seen any good solution listed to accomplish what I'd like to do.
Thanks so much for any tips or a link to a thread that you might know about.
With a battery charger you can move the bottom mounted actuator motor but I think it was the tilt up / down motor . High currnt arcing hazard but no fuse required as the motor winings has resistance .
There is hope if the column is not broken in that the steering wheel/column cannot be pulled/pushed with no resistance (broken plastic gears).
If the 'square-end' drive cable is broken, it can be replaced but without the position sensor 'knowing' where the telescoping column is, you should disable the AUTO feature because the motor will continue to the drive the column when the limit is reached and damage the cable AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!
I have written an exhaustive reply to a post (somewhere on the internet) on how to make sure the sensor is correctly configured but if you simply disable the AUTO feature and stop the column where you want it, it will not stall the motor or try to drive the column beyond the mechanical stops.
You can drive the motor/sensor and make sure the limits co-inside with the configuration so that the mechanical limits reached stops the motor at the configured limits.
