cruise control assistance needed

1999 CV S model, 201K miles. The 'set/accel' function no longer works. It is still possible to set the cruise by turning the system on with the 'on/off' switch and then hitting the 'coast' button. While the system is then functioning in the cruise mode, the accelerate function of the 'set/accel'
switch does not work. If you hit the brake while in cruise mode, the 'resume' button functions normally and takes you back to the previously set speed. If you want to set a new speed, you have to turn the system off, then back on again, and once again set the speed with the 'coast' button. How do I go about troubleshooting this system? My first guess would be that the 'set/accel' switch is bad, but I wasn't sure how to get it out of the steering wheel to check it with a meter, and then replace it if it was bad. My dad uses the cruise control every time he drives, so I wouldn't be surprised if the switch were worn out with as many miles as are on the vehicle.

Any ideas on how to get the switches out of the steering wheel would definitely be helpful as at least that way I could test their operation (or lack of) with a meter.

I don't know of a way to get the switches out, but why not get another steering wheel from the junkyard to replace/test with?

You have to disable the airbag before removing it. After removal of the airbag, I think you can unbolt the switches then. If I remember correctly, they are just held in by little screws.

What is entailed in disabling and re-enabling the air bag? I'm thinking that maybe I should just leave it alone until it stops working altogether. Will I need any kind of special tools for the job?

As far as I have read, you just have to pull the negative cable off of the battery and wait 10-15 minutes, kind of like resetting the ECU.

You will need to rent a steering wheel puller from AutoZone, I believe.

You will not have to remove the steering wheel. Once the airbag is removed, you will have access to the screws holding the switch in.

to Remove the cruise control switches Right Behind the Steering wheel you'll see two tabs or just bolts by the turn signal Switch and shifter arm unscrew those 2 bolts then pull out the airbag gently then you'll need a hex head to unscrew the switches unplug them and put it back together and Pray lmao cuz if your Lucky it's only the Switch don't forget to undo one battery cable and wait 15 mins for a Reset iv,e pulled mine apart many times it's very easy Bro!

i,m having problems with mine on my 97 which i need to fix to sell it just bought an 04 p71 with only 55,800 miles Looks Like a new car all over

but I Got a bunch of switches and Relays i,m Gonna try and fix it if I can't I guess i'll have to pay a shop to diagnose where it's dead at

Finally broke down (got my dad off of his wallet!:biggrin:) and purchased a fsm. The procedure is just as easy as you have all described. Will let you know what I find. I'm betting that it isn't as simple as the switch but it's worth the effort. Thanks again.

Finally broke down (got my dad off of his wallet!:biggrin:) and purchased a fsm. The procedure is just as easy as you have all described. Will let you know what I find. I'm betting that it isn't as simple as the switch but it's worth the effort. Thanks again.
My '99 CVPI is having the exact same issue as you have described. In your last post (quoted above), you said you would post the results. What have you found out in the past 7 months?

As of today, I still have not addressed the issue, so subsequently no results to post. I do believe, in this case, that the problem is in the switches, although I now believe that the on/off switch is also becoming a problem. And why not, with 219K miles and the fact that my dad has used those switches every time he's driven the thing since '99. As for me, I do not care for cc as I want to be driving the car and not the car driving me around. Depending on how hard the switches are depressed seems to be the difference in whether or not the cc with take over. Times are tight financially, so I doubt that this issue will be getting resolved anytime in the near future. Can still get the cc to work, so won't be messing with it right away. I hardly have enough time to sleep so won't be burning the candle at both ends for something so minor. Sorry to disappoint.

Not a problem, I understand fully. Thanks for the quick response.

It just appeared you had 'forgotten' to update the repair due to being so happy you had gotten it fixed.

Thanks for your understanding, and I fully understand your concern over results not being posted. Afterall, the forum cannot and will not work without individuals following up with results. The idea behind the forum is not only to benefit the individual with the original post/problem, but is for the benefit of all of the members. It does bother me that I have been delinquent in getting to the root of the problem and not posting results. I will be placing a note on the countertop ASAP to at least remove the switches and test with a meter, and hope to accomplish that this weekend, and post my findings. As far as getting new switches installed to make sure that they are the only issue at hand, well, that's another story. To all you AFers that are viewing this post, I hope that you enjoy a wonderful weekend! Rob

killermrob83 & H3wk: An idea just occured to me. On my '99 CVPI, I had a dash lightbulb that wasn't working. I pulled it out, and before replacing it, I noticed the the filament in the bulb was intact, but the contacts on the bulbholder were not very bright. I polished up the bulb holder contacts, and it's working great now!
Perhaps we all are suffering the same issue with the switch contacts in the steering wheel! If you think about it, those switches are up front and available to everything from cigarette smoke to spilled coffe or sodas, not to mention skin oils and the accompanying dirt. I'll check mine next week (don't have time today, getting ready to go out of town tomorrow A.M.) I will try to advise what happens when I get time to work on it.

Found a few extra minutes this afternoon and went out to tackle the issue. Removed the airbag no problem. Cannot see the backside of the switches. Even tried looking through the access holes to the airbag mounting bolts on the back side of the steering wheel. I can bend a finger around from the airbag opening and feel the back side of the switches, but there is no room/clearance to remove the switch mounting screws. Am I correct in thinking that the steering wheel has to be removed to go any further? There is a plastic shroud (for lack of a better term) that encloses the back side of the steering wheel. It is a one piece deal that can only be removed after the wheel has been removed, at least that's how it appears to me. I unplugged the connectors and started chasing out the wiring, as I do not have a wiring diagram readily available. What I was able to determine was that the on/off switch works (continuity) quite easily when switching to the off position, but must be mashed down quite hard to get continuity when switching to the on position. One must keep in mind at this point that this is not your ordinary on/off switch, where there would only be continuity in the on position. This switch also supplies the power to the resume/set-accel/coast switch. Cannot see the back side of either switch, so wasn't able to figure out what is going on with the right side set of switches. It would be my guess that the same problem is occurring with those switches as well. I fully agree with Stale Trooper regarding crud getting into the switch because of its location. In fact, just repaired a set of power window switches which sit in a horizontal position of the driver's door arm rest in a '94 Grand Prix. Pulled the switches out of the armrest, disassembled them (yes, they can be taken apart if you're careful about it and the housings are not molded), hit the contact areas (full of dog hair, food, dirt, etc.) with contact cleaner, gently blew them out with compressed air, reassembled everything (after testing with a meter!), and they work like new. Not sure if the CV cruise control switches can be disassembled (snap fit housings or molded housings), but will address that issue once I can remove them. Does anyone agree that the steering wheel has to be removed for this particular year of CV? I thought about bending the plastic shroud, on the back side of the wheel, back far enough to gain the required access, but am afraid that I will wind up breaking that nearly 13 year old plastic that has spent its share of days in the sunshine. Thanks again for all of your input. Rob

Hmmmmm, wonder about simply gently spraying contact cleaner (brake cleaner?) into the switches to clean the contacts from the front side? One would want to check with Ford or someone in a salvage yard to see if this will work or will it mess up the plastic?

That sounds like a viable option, but I do not think that I'll take that route. If it were my car, maybe so, but it belongs to my parents. I don't have much experience removing steering wheels, but can rebuild engines, so how hard can it be to pull the thing? I would think that it would be a piece of cake, unless a special tool that can only be obtained from Ford would be needed.

I just found this over on the CrownVic.net forum; It seems we are not alone! Look at the last 2 entries to the chat, especially the photos showing the back side of the switches. It looks as if the writer was able to simply 'pop' them out from the front (notice the steering wheel surrounding the grungy switch interior). I cannot explain the last photo in the series, but it looks like the pieces & parts off the front side of the switch.
http://www.crownvic.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1997368

Must thank and commend you for your efforts and tenacity in approaching this repair. The parts in the third pic from the CrownVic.net forum look foreign (cannot associate them with anything that I am seeing from a visual inspection) to me. Maybe they are from underneath the switch covers. I was attempting to remove the entire switch assembly, including the ear-shaped housings, from the steering wheel, which may be why I wasn't able to get them out on the first attempt with only having the airbag removed. I now have access to the factory service manual for this particular model year. The first step listed for Speed Control Actuator Switch removal (vol. 1, 310-03-30) is to remove the steering wheel. BUT........ the fourth step (after removal of the steering wheel cover screws, disconnecting electrical connector and wiring harness from cover, removing said cover) is to push the switches out toward the face of the steering wheel. I believe that I have enough clearance from the front, with the airbag removed, to get my finger around the backside and push them out. We shall see. Going out for a second attempt.

Ok, I've had great success with getting the switches out and servicing (cleaning the contact surfaces) them. Do not know how successful the cleaning procedure was as I have not yet driven the car. I have some good tips and pictures to post that I believe will help anyone who might have to address this same situation. I do not know how to post pics to this site, but I do know how to send them via e-mail. Can anyone help me to get these pics on the site? If so, please send me an e-mail or private message, so as not to add more clutter to this discussion. Thanks again.

FROM KILLERMROB83:
The first photo shows the switch housing and switches (on/off) once removed, without the covers. As you can see, the housings have ears that fit into the recessed area of the cavity in the steering wheel, as seen in the second photo. I used a small flat head screwdriver to chase around the outside circumference of the switch housing to make sure that it wasn't stuck to the wheel due to humidity or whatever else may have been spilled on the wheel. With airbag removed (WARNING: know exactly what you're doing before removing), I was then able to work a finger around through the opening, and while carefully prying the pliable rubber-covered padding of the wheel away from the housing, force the housing out of the wheel. I would highly recommend doing this while the wheel is warm (warmer weather or slowly heat with blow dryer) so as not to tear the rubber covering on the padding. In the third and fourth photos you'll see that the switch covers have nipples that they pivot on in the housing. If you look closely, those nipples are shorter on the sides of the covers that are facing toward the center of the wheel. I used the same small flat head screwdriver mentioned above, placed it in the gap between housing and cover in the location of the shorter nipple, then with a slight twist of the driver to open up the gap to gain clearance for the nipple, pry outward and the cover pops right out. If you try to pop the longer nipple out instead, you increase the risk of breaking these plastic parts, especially when cold. If I had known how the covers were held in place in the housings, I would have skipped the step of removing the housings. Once the covers were removed, I could see that there was no real access to the actual contact surfaces of the switches. I liberally doused the switches with contact cleaner, as there is a very small clearance between the switch button and switch body, and some clearance where the connection pins exit the body. Then using a small punch, I depressed the switch button to increase the gap to allow more contact cleaner to enter the switch body in hopes of getting to the contact surfaces. Once I felt that I had worked enough cleaner down into the body of the switch, I exercised (repeated cycling of) the switch to facilitate cleaning. I repeated this cleaning procedure several times to make sure that I had actually accomplished something with the efforts. Removal of the right side switches is almost identical to the left. The right side has two covers. The lower cover (set-accel/coast) must be removed first as it rests on top of the upper (resume) cover. I would highly recommend that these parts are warm enough (above 50 degrees) to prevent breakage. The factory service manual says that the steering wheel must be removed to remove these switches, because that will allow access to the back side of the switches so that they can be pushed out from the back side, after removal of the steering wheel cover on the back side of the wheel. Obviously, this isn't true, unless you want to replace the switches. This is because there is a common (not ground) wire that is hard-wired to both switches, which supplies power from the left bank to the right bank. If you're willing to splice the wires back together, you can bypass the wheel removal by cutting the wires and r/r the switches from their respective sides. Hope this helps anyone with the same issues. Rob

[ To view the pictures, click on the link, then click on the mini pic, it should make it larger, This is my first attempt to upload pix to this forum. It's a learning process!
Stale Trooper]