PICTURES Included: Mass Play in Steering wheel

Knarf

*Please review the photos provided before reading..

Looks as of those two yellow rivets aren't holding the wheel anymore?
The vehicle is a 2010 Escape XLT flex fuel V6 3.0 100k miles. I Thank all of y'all in advance for any advice or replies.
Also which spark plugs are recommended ? double platinum is the recommended metal? I know motorcraft is what Ford uses. .045-.048 gap is what manual says.

thecardoc3

Those are not rivets to hold the wheel on, the wheel is retained by a bolt that is beneath the airbag. Those are pins that rotate the clock spring when the wheel is turned.

Knarf

Thank you! How do I get to this bolt and are those connectors shown for air bag? Can they be disconnected.. see where I'm going with this

thecardoc3

The connectors are for the airbag, horn, and all of the other buttons on the steering wheel. You have to remove the airbag to reach the bolt that secures the wheel to the column. As far as removing the airbag goes you can search and find a couple YouTube videos that will demonstrate how to remove the airbag.

Knarf

Have you personally done this? Taking the air bag completely out

Knarf

There's an air bag light on dash been there ever since this started occuring any correlation between the two?

thecardoc3

I wouldn't know without testing. Has anyone pulled codes?

thecardoc3

Here are some photo's from a steering column repair I did this week.
The first one is the bottom of the steering wheel removed and the top of the column where the clock spring is.



The second one is just the clock spring




The third one is the retaining bolt that secures the wheel to the steering shaft.