So, I'll start by saying the design of the ignition barrel / steering wheel lock is pretty dangerous. The steering wheel lock is spring loaded to lock the wheel. So, hard to steal, but it may kill you if the mechanism fails. I will be disabling this feature on my LX470, because I don't want to roll the dice again in the future.
I'll post some pictures from my phone after I type this up, so if you see this without pictures, check back in a few minutes.
So, I'm not normally a quick fix guy, so I took way too much apart, so I could tell you all not to try what I did. The ignition barrel (45280-60460) is available for about $250, but ultimately you can pin this in an unlocked state for about 10 cents, and then you'll never fear it locking on you in a turn, on a mountainside... I removed the barrel, hoping to remove the locking mechanism, but Toyota did not intend for it to be taken apart. I just couldn't get it apart, so I ultimately drilled a 3/32" hole, while holding the slide in, and used a 3/32" cotter pin to hold it in place. You can do this without removing the barrel from the truck, as long as you can get it unlocked.
You'll need to remove all of this, plus the lower steering column cover and the lower ac duct. Nothing cosmic here.
If you have a large vocabulary of bad words and need for self inflicted pain, you could remove the barrel. These anti-tamper bolts are a real PITA. I used a dremel grinding wheel to put a slot in them, and also needed to use a hammer and center punch to get them to budge. Mark the barrel if you do this so you can cuss some more later when trying to reinstall it. I actually also dropped the whole column to get better access to it (only 4 nuts, but you'll need to disconnect all the wire harnesses, which you'll do anyways if removing this). If the column is locked, dropping it won't help and you'll be better off leaving it up.
This is the offending lock. What is supposed to happen is the cam on the infamous ignition rod should pull this out of the way. Mine broke internally and so it would not retract, or at least it was bound up, because it would intermittently retract. I wish I could have gotten it apart to verify for you all, but I didn't want to spend the $250 to replace it.
You'll want to drill the hole to the left, here, in the vicinity of the cast circle. The one to the right didn't catch the lock pin.
And here it is with the cotter pin in it. Fixed forever.
You should be able to do this without the disassembly that I did. There is a reinforcing plate above this, but I think you can make it work. You may be able to go from the front, as well.
