Key wont turn! Need help fast (1 Viewer)

[2001LC]

A parts guy at Lexus Dealerships, clued me years ago to issue with stuck IG tumblers pins. Which happens, a little to often to me. By inserting one of my other LX keys, in wrong LX IG switch. This tends, to cause tumblers pins to get stuck. Which dirt from keys over time, may also do.

Cure: With proper LX key in. Take a screw diver and tap with its plastic handle, on back of key while in IG SW briskly. Don't break the keys case. Best is, If you've a non FOB key, use it. Their case is stronger. This tapping, vibrates pins in tumbler, which then fall back into place. I've found, spraying a lube into tumbler first, is helpful.

The LX FOB, opens all windows and sunroof. If open button held down.

BTW: I've not tried this. But we may be able to activate windows and sun roof through tech stream, with IG key off.

 

[jLB]

I’d suspect that a decent locksmith could re-pin a replacement ignition cylinder to match the original.

 

[SteveH]

@2001LC is right about the 'inserting the wrong key' problem and the fix.

Then I was able to pull the cylinder out of the truck and inspect it. It feels terrible. It feels like something came loose in there because sometimes it is hard to turn and hard to turn back, other times it feels fine.

I would still shoot some silicone lube there and insert/remove the key and rotate the lock to different positions to distribute the lube. You having nothing to lose by trying this. After I did this, the key in my RX worked like greased lightning. I later sold the vehicle, so I can't comment on the long-term effectiveness.

 

[trackdaygrin]

Ok, so here goes my attempt to explain what I found in my 06 LX ignition. I took my a while to get back to this so I apologize. I ended up disassembling the entire system to figure out why it was not working. Even with the ignition cylinder out of the truck, it felt like garbage. Getting almost stuck every time and having a lot of resistance when turning from off to ACC. I ended up drilling out the top pin of the three the holds the front cover on. I didn’t drill it all the way, but enough to make the pin get loose so I could get it to slide.

The other two you can get a very sharp brad nail to slide under and then pry up with progressively larger nails and screws and finally a snap on pick.

Then you can remove that cap so the guts of the cylinder can come out. There is a snap ring on the back that needs to be removed.

Be very careful at this point because if you remove the cylinder’s guts without the key, the pins can come out. KEEP THE KEY IN FROM HERE ON! With the key in the cylinder, remove the inner portion from the housing, you will have to compress the long spring loaded rod on the housing to get the inner portion out.

There is a black piece that can fall out as soon as you start to remove it so catch that little guy before you lose it. Once I had it all apart I found that the cylinder was pretty dirty, however that was not the issue. The pins are supposed to go inward and stay there when the key is inserted. I found that my pins were sticking out too much. I decided to double check this with a new key from Lexus that never had any wear on it (the aluminum emergency door key that came with the truck new). Even with this “new” key inserted, the pins were not fully going into the cylinder. That tells me that the wear that was causing the problem was internal on the actual brass pins themselves. I decided to remove a little material from the portion of the brass pins that was sticking up to compensate for the wear. I also cleaned up a couple little burs that were on the aluminum housing. I used a tiny little needle file to do all of this.

Once I filed the pins enough, I cleaned everything up using a can of Remoil which has PTFE in it to help lube things up in addition to spraying all of the debris out of the cylinder. The way that I did this allowed me to reuse all of the steel pins on the cover and I did not compromise the security of this system but it accounted for the wear of the system after 209k miles. The truck is back together and works great now.

 

[trackdaygrin]

Here are some more pictures. This sows access to the other two steel pins. The top one is blocked so you can get it to pop up without drilling.

This is the little black price that can fall out. This is shown with the key in. Keep the key in when the inner cylinder is out of the housing.

This next one shows the freshly filled pins.

This shows an area I cleaned up a burr and some of the freshly filled pins.

I hope this helps someone else. It feels great now and is operating perfectly.