Power Tilt motor on Ebay

[T2T]

The irony is though that this thread has been bumped for a good reason. Though my wife and I haven't adjusted our steering wheel position for well over 5 years, I have a daughter who just got her license this past week. Today, I was demonstrating to her how she could tilt the wheel to change its position. Well, sure enough, when it got to the upper position, it stuck there. Now, we have to use the truck driver position until I get it fixed. [/b]

I was able to pull my car into the garage this evening and take the components apart for the tilt wheel mechanism. The motor on mine was good - spins freely. I didn't notice much black junk like some of the others - I guess this may be due to the fact that we really didn't see a need to adjust ours that frequently - and kept it always in the manual position.

After getting the tilt motor mechanism detached from the power connector, I then started to explore a bit more. The cavity where the gears from the tilt motor bolts to the steering housing has a white plastic/nylon gear in it that the motor interacts with to control the lift and drop. The white gear is about 1" in diameter and 5/8" in height. Mine was packed nicely with lots of clean white grease - so, I poked around gently with some Q-tips, and then BAM - I realized the issue. About 1/2 of my white gear fell out of the housing. This meant that when the motor was installed, it was basically freewheeling since there was really nothing to grab.

I did a little reading and realized that these individual components are basically not available by themselves, but Mazda will gladly sell you more parts than you need as a "unit" for a hefty sum. The metal that was exposed under the removed plastic gear portion was knurled - which allowed me to take a small screwdriver and turn the assembly about 1/8th of a turn with each pass. Slowly, my steering wheel started to move down into a comfortable position. No more "bus" driver style steering at this point in time on my Milly.

I told my wife the good and the bad news. We're just going to live with the "fix" that I've applied as opposed to dropping major money to get a feature working that we barely use. Instead, I'll apply the necessary funds to get rid of that dreaded P0400 code that has plagued my Milly for a few years.

[scottn83]

I have just bought a 99 milli drove it about 4 weeks and then the ol steering wheel stayed in the full up position problem popped up.

Thanks to all the info here while at work one day grabbed a small offset ratcheting screw driver. Took me about 5 min to get the 4 screws that hold the motor and gear out. Removed the electric plug. Removed the 3 screws that hold the motor brush assy to the motor. Clean out the brush dust(black crap that everyone is seeing) with some electronic contact cleaner. Put it all back together reinstalled in the car for a total of maybe 30 min to complete the job.

For those of you that clean it out and the motor starts to turn but cant maintain I think could be a good chance the brushes are worn out and the motor needs to be replaced.


Be nice on comments this is my first post

[T2T]

Originally Posted by scottn83

Be nice on comments this is my first post

We're nice all the time, dammit!

Welcome to the forum.

[spoiled2.3]

Originally Posted by Longwood Dave

Three years later, but this is good.

You CAN REPAIR the tilt motor! It only takes about 1-2 hours if you are motivated and somewhat mechanically-inclined.

I got bored the other day so I removed the tilt motor. Mine was working only very intermittently, but stopped in a good position, until my kid started pushing buttons. This is not as easy as removing the column cover and then the motor, at least on mine (1998 L). The motor on mine is near the base of the column. You can see it by looking lengthwise down the column on the bottom side. It is held in place by 4 philips-head screws, which are very difficult to get to, unless you do what I did. I literally punched 4 holes through the bottom of the knee bolster to get at the screws. The two nearest the steering wheel can be punched with your screw driver, but the two lower ones required a 1/4" drill. I hated to de-face my car, but you really can't tell unless you're looking for them. Anyway, I then unplugged the motor and removed the screws, using a magnetic probe to catch them so as not to lose them. The motor then drops right out onto the floor. There are 3 screws that hold the motor itself to the gear drive. I removed them, pulled the motor off, and VOILA - the brushes were totally crudded-up with a bunch of black crap. I then cleaned everything up with a couple of rags and some electronic cleaner. I would suggest also pulling the armature out of the case and cleaning it thouroughly; there will be some resistance due to it the fact that it uses a permanent magnet motor. I then re-greased the bushings and put it all back together. Plugged it in before reassembling it to the column, hit the switch and it worked like a charm! I then re-greased the worm gear that mates to the column and installed the screws just so they're snug. Then I bumped the tilt switch to seat the gears properly, tightened the screws the rest of the way and it has worked perfectly ever since. I'm 6'4" so this is a really nice feature for me to have in working order.

This worked great for me! So nice to have my tilt back, thank you!
My tilt only worked on rare occasion. I'm 6'3" so it is a big deal to me. I drilled the 4 holes in the front panel, removed motor, disassembled. It was full of black gunk, sprayed out with CRC electronic cleaner, regreased the shaft, reassembled, and now works like new!

[wilfredom]

Let me confess that it was too much a reading of reading in this thread that I passed up..
But my car (2.5 '99) had the same symtoms of an electric motor winning & all..it was a broken plastic sproket inside the tilt mechanism..it required to replace entire steering mechanics.. below sterring plastic cover was a rectangular resess, cut tru it & with a screw driver gained acces to the other sprocket & set my wheel to a prefered fixed position,,

[KenzieTN]

I just bought a 2000 Mazda Millenia, today all of a sudden the power tilt quit working and it is stuck in the upward position. How much would it cost to have someone to fix it?

[spoiled2.3]

Originally Posted by KenzieTN

I just bought a 2000 Mazda Millenia, today all of a sudden the power tilt quit working and it is stuck in the upward position. How much would it cost to have someone to fix it?

Why not try the repair I just described? What ever you do, don't take to your dealer, they hate this car and will make you sorry you took it to them.

[nivram]

OK, glad there is still alot of interest and conversion on these topics. Mine quit working when its cold,and was wondering if it could be wires with a broken conductor. Cause the motor does not work and the manual up-down does not respond. My 97 did the same thing, and the 02 is now doing the same thing. Maybe a connection? Thanks for the up date on the fix.