I've been having issues with my cruise control switch being difficult to operate and I decided to remove the assy from the steering wheel and see what's in there.

Step 1) Remove the two Phillip's head screws that hold the switch to the steering wheel and carefully disconnect the electrical connector. I reinstalled the screws to the housing so I wouldn't lose them.



Note the three T8 screws that hold the outer housing to the main unit. Remove the three screws and set them aside. There are two tabs that hold the housing to the unit. Rather than lift the outer part of the housing (and possibly breaking the tab holders) turn the unit so the buttons/lettering face upward and the bottom should fall outward/down. It is very easy to separate. Just take your time.



Very gently remove the levers from the face. They use a pivot hinge with the hinge part cast into the piece. Use a very thin flat-tip screwdriver and gingerly remove them.



Be *VERY CAREFUL* of the little blue ***** that are on the back of the levers!!! One fell off onto my garage floor and I thought it was lost in the bowels of dirt and grease. Found it after a few moments of panic, swearing, and looking.



I have some dental picks I bought at Harbor Freight that come in handy. Note that behind the buttons is a metal plate. Again, this plate locks in place on either side, so I slipped the dental pick in nudged them off. It's impossible to see from my pictures, but behind each plate is a broken copper contact. The ball pushes the plate, which is convex in form. When the plate comes down, it causes the copper contacts to touch, which in turn either activate or deactivate the circuit.



Each plate was dirty on the backside. I used a metal polish and a Q-tip to clean the back and the front of each plate. I followed that up with denatured alcohol. In this picture, I have the plate on the far left cleaned, while the dirt is noticeable on the other two plates.


The flash didn't work too well with this last picture, but you get the idea. Each of the copper contacts was dark in appearance, so I worked some polish on each one with a Q-tip followed by some alcohol to clean everything up. I then used the dental pick to bend each copper contact outwards. I figured 10 years of usage bending downward is what was causing the difficulty in actuating each switch (especially the On/Off switch).



This is also a good time to run an alcohol soaked Q-tip over all surfaces to get every little bit of dirt removed from the housing and the main unit. Reinstall each of the plates, followed by the buttons and snap the assy into the housing. It is easier to put the two halves together by reassembling the same way they came apart. Point the buttons/lettering upward and gently put the unit into the housing by inserting the tabs first at an angle and then pivoting it together. This also prevents the hinged levers from jamming into the outer button casings.

If the screws that hold the unit to the steering wheel were installed so they would not be lost, remove them, plug the electrical connector to the cruise control unit, and then install/tighten the screws. If you took the time to bend each copper contact upward a bit the results will be noticeable the first time the cruise control is activated.