Anyways. I recently bought a multifunction switch (MFS) from someone on the boards. About 3 years ago (lol) when making the drive back to college I saw a little bit of smoke coming from the steering column, then it went away. I then had problems with my headlights not coming on, but then they all went away. Well, one day I became curious and took it apart. I found that the main connector was actually melted. The plastic connector is literally cracked and part of the connection inside is melted. The actual multifunction switch itself (the big black thing the connector plugs into) seemed fine, the couple prongs where the melted part had been were slightly off-color. I have read that you can get the harness now, cut off so you can solder it back on I guess. At the time when this happened to me, you had to buy the whole thing.
Well, like I said, 3 years later, after getting tired of seeing my fog lamp "on" indicator come on whenever I turned my headlights on, then go off when I used my turn signal, I decided to replace the MFS. For some reason my headlight stalk that also controls the fogs/turn signals decided to get messed up somehow.
I've taken my column apart many a time and I remember the first time I had no clue what needed to come off in what order so I decided to post up some pics in case anyone is leary of doing this.
Your column is 2 pieces, upper and lower. They snap together and are then held by 2 semi-long screws. You need to unscrew these screws before doing anything else. Look underneath and you'll see 3 holes, the 2 closest to you have the screws in them. Once you get those out (they may not come all the way out and fall out), you can pull the upper part off of the bottom. Depending how small your hands are, you may not even need to take the bottom piece off.
Now that you have the cover(s) off, you can get the harnesses loose. My favorite part! (sarcasm). I managed to break both of mine so... apparently you are supposed to push the little red thing forwards (toward the front of the car), which should release tension on the gray connector. HOWEVER. If you think that's all you need to do, you are wrong. In the next pic, you will see the bump on your MFS that the gray connector(s) need to be pried OVER. If you do not do this, you end up breaking your gray connector. (although they are in so tight, I don't see anyone having issues not having the broken piece, I haven't so far). That's another thing. My big harness was REALLY tight, because it was melted. It took about 20 minutes of prying to get it loose. Be prepared if you expect yours is also melted.
Once you get the harnesses unplugged, you can unscrew the 2 screws on top of the MFS. I don't remember what size, but they are torx.
You can now lift your whole MFS with stalks attached out. Lift straight up. I don't know how OEM MFS's come, but my used one came with both stalks, one was detached to fit in the box (easy to put back on, 2 screws).
Install the new MFS, in reverse order of what you just did. There are 2 "prongs" that seat in a hole on each side (see picture).
There you go, new MFS
So I cleaned that all up before putting it all back together.
