Ignition switch W126 Knee bolster duct and tumbler removal tool

[donbryce]

Well, my blower finally quit on me, of course away from home and super-hot day, had to drive home without A/C. I've been jiggling the ignition switch to get the blower to come on, most of last summer and all of this one, and had a new ignition (electrical part) switch, since last year, but gave up installation after hours of trying to get the %$^&* tumbler out with several allen keys, pieces of wire, paper clips, whatever.

I just happened last week to have bought a $3.00 allen key set to get a particular size for a tool I have, so I tried the smallest one, a .050" key. Perfect fit, even though the manual specifies a piece of wire 1.25mm thick (.05" = 1.27mm).
There are dozens of threads about the removal procedure, so I just wanted to add a couple of tips:

- The manual I have doesn't say how to remove that huge steel airduct tube behind the knee bolster panel, and I haven't seen a post on this either. This was another thing that stopped me before. I had better sense or whatever this time, and found it comes out only after you remove the cover panel, then the 'L' bracket holding the left lower dash corner in place. There are 2 10mm nuts on the left side, gotten at from below, and 1 13mm bolt accessible through the dash opening after the instrument cluster is out, which also secures the tubular brace to the steering column. No need to remove this bolt, just loosen and pull the steel tube down. Pic shows the nasty bracket holes/slots at each end. It's a bear to get back in though.

- The little releasing pin that you need to depress, after the ignition lock main body collar thing has been loosened, to withdraw the assembly, isn't visible until the column has been dropped about 1 1/2". This is not the locking bolt pin at the end of the tube, the 'big' one that locks the wheel, just the 1/8" diameter retaining pin. It's at about the 4 o'clock position, right down where the plastic cover ends.

- As others have noted, no need to remove the steering wheel, but the knee panel and steel duct MUST come off to lower the column. I thought I'd read where someone said it wasn't necessary to remove this lower panel, but it couldn't have been for a W126 with this stupid steel duct.

To wrap this up, after all was done, the blower still didn't come on! So I changed the fuse, and now it works! I know the switch was bad, as jiggling a little to the left (counter-clockwise) gave it power. And, I cannot see any break in the fuse metal. Must be a Mercedes thing......