Learning the hard way- Cruise Control buttons

[Class5Cole]

The cruise control buttons on my steering wheel were severely damaged and were actually extremely distracting at night with the bright green light shining towards my face. I decided to order the Orion Motor Tech switches as opposed to OEM. My fault for being cheap.

First install, the cruise control light was going off every time I would turn the wheel right and the "Coast" switch was setting off the horn. Strange...

Second install, same thing.

Pulled the assembly back apart, realizing what I had overlooked. The new switches actually had less pins than the OEM harness. No problem, I'll swap the harness out with the provided one. It was already about 103 degrees here so I was getting a little fatigued but not going to cry about it. I put the wheel back together with the new switches and harness. Now with the battery connected, the horn was going off. Not great for an echo-y condo complex where we aren't even supposed to work on vehicles. Yes I could have pulled the horn relay but I was already frustrated with this supposed to be 5 minute project. Keep in mind this is the 2001 Ranger Edge with manual everything and no alarm.

Long story short, after many trials and many errors I found the culprit. The Orion harness is much wider than OEM and was making contact with the clock spring where its supposed to cleanly sneak under. This was setting off the Cruise Control light and setting the horn off. Hope someone sees this and learns from my mistake. All good now

 

[DougInNJ]

Thank You for the info. I will be ordering both new switches to replace my cruise control on 2003 XLT 4x4. I was searching for a "How to" on how to do this and where to start. Any tips? Thanks Doug

 

[Class5Cole]

I'll try to keep this simple as possible!
1) Unplug the battery and press the horn and lights to get rid of any phantom charge
2) Sides of the steering wheel each has a small circle access panel. Pop those off to expose the bolts holding the center of the wheel on
3) Remove bolts and carefully unplug the airbag
4) Cruise control buttons will have two screws each and they will come off- Left side has a ground wire to unscrew
5) Unplug cruise control harness unless you are reusing it- If you have to replace the harness, remove the two screws that hold the right-side clock spring on. Route harness underneath
6) Put it all back together in reverse order, connect battery. Good to go!

 

[Class5Cole]

Let me know if you have questions or need more detailed photos with highlighting