During out last trip my VIP Smart Wheel starting acting erratically again so this week I decided to resolve the issue (hopefully once and for all) The last time this occurred I had Fred look at it and after we cleaned it up it worked well for a year or so but it did stay fixed so I figured we didn't qo quite far enough. However, after watching Fred I figured I could do this myself.
First thing was to buy a steering wheel puller at the local Autozone and a small tube of Permatex dielectric grease.
Once I had the tools it took all of 15 minutes to remove the 4 screws holding the button assy in place, the one Allen screw for the center pad, pop off the steering wheel nut and puledl the wheel.
Once the wheel was off the whole slip ring assy just lifted off. The two copper slip rings were badly tarnished and in a low voltage situation that can cause problems so I used my dremel tool with a polishing disc to burnish the rings until they were nice and bright. After they were clean I applied a thin layer of dielectric grease to eliminate future tarnishing.
Once the wheel was reassembled I took it for a test drive and everything functioned perfectly. The first time we did this I didn't burnish the rings as well nor did we use the grease so hopefully these steps will prove to be the magic bullet. On the up side even if I had to do this every year or two I now know the whole job can be done in less than an hour.
One item of note, only the VIP wheels used up to mid 2002 models have the slip ring after that they would use a clock-spring.
