Spiral Cables are the unsung heroes of your automobile. Even though they do one of the most critical jobs inside your car, they’re barely recognized. Suppose you’re comfortable and happy with the steering and the handling of your car. It is partially because of the spiral cable that perfectly connected the electrical circuits of your steering column to the steering wheel components.
Are you still confused? Let us clarify a bit. Spiral cables are a coil of wires that come in a doughnut-shaped container and allow your steering wheel to rotate and move seamlessly. But how exactly does it do the job? We’ll come to that later.
How Do Spiral Cables Work?
Spiral cable basically connects the electrical circuits with different steering wheel components, including the horn switch, steering wheel controls, and airbag assembly.
The cable lets the steering wheel rotate by providing electrical connections. Now the main objective of spiral cables is to connect the steering wheel components with the steering column.
A steering column has a good many electronic circuits that make the whole car run smoothly. Spiral cable makes sure that the handling of the car through the steering is done correctly.
What’s a Clock Spring?
One may wonder, what’s the purpose of another tool named ‘clock spring’ in the discussion of spiral cables? Well, we believe that these two are closely related.
While spiral cables set the electrical connections to the steering wheel, clock spring is the getaway they use to make the connection.
In simpler words, a clock spring is a special rotary electrical connector that enables the steering wheel to turn while keeping the electrical connection on. It works as the connecting point for spiral cables and is an essential tool for an automobile to run smoothly.
Can Spiral Cables and Clock Springs Go Bad?
Definitely, these are electrical components, so there can be various reasons behind them not working up to mark.
While the reasons can be many, it’s not very difficult to figure out if your spiral cables are working correctly or not. You’ll feel the TPS (Throttle Position Sensor) isn’t working well and making electrical noise.
The cruise control and overall steering control might seem a little uncomfortable as well. If you feel something’s wrong, we’d suggest you immediately check up on it because leaving spiral cables untreated might result in significant damages.
How Do You Replace a Spiral Cable?
While it’s always a good option to consult a professional mechanic, you can try to replace faulty spiral cables all by yourself. First, you have to remove the spiral cable screws.
After that, push the upper plastic tab and remove the spiral cable from the car. Reminder: do not, in any case, disassemble the spiral cable.
You should never use lubricants on the spiral cable as they can be problematic later on.
Once the cable is disconnected, now it’s time to disconnect the horn switch and the spiral cable connectors, one after another. All that’s left to do is pick the new cable and connect it accordingly.
Final Words
So this was all we had to say about spiral cables. We hope the article was helpful to you, and you got a pretty neat idea about the spiral cable of your car.
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Are you confused about what exactly the spiral cable in your car does? Read the whereabouts of this essential tool from here!
