Hey all, not sure if this has been addressed before but I had trouble finding any experiences exactly like mine. Looks like some tweaker had a go at my lock cylinder last night and lost but it is mangled beyond belief. I managed to get the cylinder out, but it looks like the piece on the back end of the cylinder sheared off in the steering column. There was a green retaining clip that I managed to remove. There's a metal plate that holds the gear that the lock cylinder actually engages with (I believe its part of the lock actuator cylinder gear assembly) but I can't find a way to remove that to get a better look at the broken piece and why it's stuck. Does anyone know how to take apart the assembly behind the lock cylinder? Any help is much appreciated. I use this truck for work and without it I am in a pretty bad spot.

 

You should be able to pull the rest of the ignition cylinder out
Magnet or long needle nose or forceps and pull it out, its just a square-ish piece sitting in a slot that will turn with key and unlock steering wheel and move ignition switch into ACC, OFF, ON, and START

Nothing is holding it in there except friction

Picture of ignition cylinder here: https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/...wMw/s-l300.jpg
The piece at the end broke off, when the thief try to turn it, probably with longer pliers

Wiggle the steering wheel if its hard locked while pulling it out, to take pressure off of it

Get a replacement cylinder and take it, with your current keys to a Locksmith, and have him re-pin the cylinder to match your keys, so no need to re-program PATS and door locks will match
Take the old cylinder in as well he may be able to use those pins

 

I should've mentioned I've been trying to pull that piece out with pliers already. The metal disc in front of it does'nt seem to want to line up in a position that will allow me to actually pull it all the way out. The gear that the piece is stuck in seems pretty wobbly too, not sure how much it's supposed to move when everything isn't completely janked from a botched auto theft tho.

Thank you for the locksmith suggestion for the PATS issue. I was not looking forward to that part.

 

So I managed to get the lock plate for the gear out, removed the broken piece of the lock cylinder, and installed the new lock cylinder. Good news is that my truck powers on and all the key positions seem to be working correctly. I did a little research on the PATS issue because I know that the new cylinder won't work since it doesn't have PATS keys. I have my original key, so I was hoping that taping it to the transceiver while trying to use the non PATS key to start the truck would work but no dice. The PATS ring was damaged when my lock cylinder was being obliterated but the copper wire is still mostly in tact so I was hoping it'd work but I have no way to tell if it is actually operating.

Next step seems like ordering a new PATS transceiver and having my new lock cylinder repinned (thanks for the idea RonD!) to match the original key, reprogram the new PATS to the original key, and hope that all this gets my truck up and running again.

Anything I'm overlooking here?

 

You won't need to reprogram anything, that ring is just the antenna.

 

+1 ^^^^

Transceiver is just a powered antenna so can be swapped out without any reprogramming, there is a 4 wire plug at base of steering column so easy peasy to swap
And good work on getting that broken part out