I have a 2000 xj8 and the steering wheel tilt works sort of, you have to keep toggling the switch on the side of the column while it goes up just a little each time. You can hear it clicking under the passenger side dash. Is it a solenoid, computer, or a doohicker? beautiful car otherwise. chandler

 

Most common failure is the cable in the tilt motor. The teeth wear away and you have no movement. Remove the cowl and inspect the teeth on the cable. Yours may be just at the limit of barely grabbing.

 

I believe that happens on the reach motors. Not the tilt motors. The tilts gets worn out. I have one for sale

 

Good to hear from you, JG. I've been busy and have not been on much lately. Good to see your back!

 

And here's another opinion, switch youre toggling gets dirty/corrosion from lack of use. Move it up and down quickly 6-10x's to clean contacts. If it doesnt quit stuttering at this point the potentiometer is shot and buy jag g's motor and pot

 

Dear mr. Brutal, thanks for the help! what is a jag g's and pot? and where would I locate the potiometer? Is it the what ever is clicking under the dash? P.S Is that a picture of your silver jag? Looks just like my car.

 

jAG GENIUS POST FROM ABOVE, HE'S GOT ONE TO SELL TO FIX YOURS, AND SORRY ABOUT THE ACCRONYMS, POT=POTENTIOMETER THAT IS WHAT TELLS THE MOTOR TO STOP AT ITS LIMITS, AND WORKS IN CONJUCTION WITH THE MEMORY SETTINGS. THE 2 BIG THINGS ARE THE POTENTIOMETERS GO BAD, ITS ON THE END OF THE MOTOR, REPLACE IT AND THE MOTOR AS AN ASSEMBLY. AND THE SWITCHES FROM LACK OF USE SEEM TO GET DIRTY OR CORRODED. BY TOGGLING THEM UP AND DOWN IVE FIXED MORE THAN A FEW OVER THE YEARS THAT WERE STUTTERING ORIGINALLY, THATS WHY I SAID TRY THAT, AND IF IT DIDNT WORK REPLACE THE MOTOR AND POT. ASSEMBLY. ITS HELD TO THE BOTTOM OF THE STEERING COLUMN WITH A COUPLE HEX SCREWS

 

I've got the same problem as Kitty. The tilt works just fine from bottom till nearly the top, then the top section only goes little bits each push of the switch. It does not seem to be gear trouble, but rather the POT is not sensing correctly at that height (no clicking or grinding in the motor, just the relay is clicking as kitty describes). Also, the memory will not raise it back to the level I've saved due to the same issue. After it tilts most of the way up, I need it bump it 2-3 times more.

 

Thats exactly whats wrong with mine, it goes up about half way, and then you have to keep toggling it to make it make it go futher. To change out a potitiameter, motor, is it a difficult task, or is it a dealer issue? This is really a wonderful forum, and thank you all for the imput. I really like my 2000 xj8, and I like to learn as much as I can about working on the car. Again thanks.

 

I say easy, but it depends on your comfort level and ability.

 

Great! I fixed it. Thanks, I took the motor out, and then toggled the the motor to the farthest down position, then with my fingers, twisted the drive shaft to the wheel as far down as it will go. Put it all back togather, and now it goes all the way up, and down! So again , thanks, and it only took about 20 min.

 

So, what do you think the problem was? Do you think it was the POT not sensing the position correctly, or do you feel it may have jumped a couple teeth at some point?

Edit: I figured mine out yesterday. Below the steering column, under the plastic cover, there is a bracket that holds the tilt mechanism in place. The two screws holding that in place were just slightly loose. I always wondered why my steering wheel would move up and down the slightest bit (only about 1/8", but bothered me) when I pushed up on it. Anyways, I tightened it ever so slightly, and it does not clunk up and down anymore, and the full electric tilt function works properly.

Be careful to not over tighten, it's VERY sensitive. It's hard to tell when you have gone too far because the screws are VERY tight to move. Try little adjustments until it feels right. If you over tighten, your tilt motor will labor, and I'm sure it will wear out quickly.

 

I bought this car a year and a half ago and its always had this problem, but my guess is that it was the (pot)? It just wasnt alined up right. So know the memory works great, however I found that using it in auto, I wait a second or two after inserting the key to crank the engine, or it blew the tilt motor fuse.

 

Okay, so what I did is as you said and got under the steering column and took the tilt motor out , and then toggled the motor all the way to the down postion. then fingered the drive shaft to the tilt to the all the way down position, and put everything back togather, and now it works great. About 30 minutes of work.

 

Supersport

Your description of up-down play at the steering wheel describes what I have in my '99 XJR. I was worrying it meant worn bushes in the steering rack which sounds expensive. But now I have hope!! I'll try your fix. Thanks for mentioning that detail !

cheers
wdmoreton

 

Thanks for the great info, this thread helped me a great deal. I'm a newbie to this group, so here's my experience. I had the same problem on my recently purchased 2001 XKR, having to jog the tilt switch several times to get the wheel to tilt down. I removed the motor, left the cable hooked up and exercised it several times using the switch on the steering wheel column - having to jog the switch to get it to go down from the full up position.
I unplugged the motor and examined the black plastic potentiometer housing, attached to the motor opposite the drive shaft with a tie wrap. There was a small Philips head screw in the middle, and the potentiometer housing appeared to have a snap on cover so I clipped the tie wrap and removed the screw. I carefully lifted the snaps slightly and removed the cover. Inside, I could see a plastic helical drive gear attached to the motor shaft, which drives a plastic worm gear. The worm gear is attached to a potentiometer attached to a small circuit board. The pot/circuit board assy did not look easy to remove, so I didn't try.
The whole thing including the pot was liberally doused with silicon grease. Thinking that the grease perhaps may be fouling the electical contacts in the pot, I sprayed electical contact cleaner liberally at the pot in and around it (leaving the gears and grease there alone). There were no obvious openings in the pot, so I can't say if any got into the electrical contacts.
I plugged it back in and exercised it a few times up and down with the cover off the pot housing. I resprayed contact cleaner around it so I could exercise it wet (taking care not to get any cleaner on the carpet or elsewhere - I actually unplugged it and sprayed it outside the vehicle, then plugged it in again.). At first the helical gear started to wind out and disengaged from the worm gear when activating the switch tilt up. The motor went happily round and round. So I activated it back down and re-engaged the worm gear. Now holding the helical gear down, I exercised it many times and there were no hiccups. a while holding the helical gear from screwing out. The motor seemed just fine, so I'm pretty sure this problem is due to the potentiometer.
When activating up, the motor makes three rotations and then stops. Activating up again produces no motion. Activating down, the motor makes six turns in the opposite direction and stops. Activating down again produces six more turns down. I noticed that the exterior of the potentiometer assy rotates three turns either direction. There is a small arrow on the back of the pot that points to the top when it is in the fully up position. So, more than just a simple pot.
I put the whole thing back together, attached a new tie wrap and reinstalled the motor. Before mounting the motor, I rotated the motor to the full down position, hand cranked the drive shaft to move the steering wheel to the lowest tilt, as previously recommended.
Viola - so far it works perfect!
The only thing I noticed that was not previously mentioned is that the two mounting screws for the motor had a bit of thread cement under the heads. I didn't have any handy so put it together without fresh cement. This could result in the screws coming loose later, but I'll have some thread cement handy next time.
Hey, sorry for all the detail but I thought it was interesting to find out another thing to try for fixing this problem. I'm not sure that all I did is necessary, perhaps just removing the motor and exercising it up and down would be sufficient. My guess is that the excess grease is an assembly error, or perhaps the pot should have been designed with better isolation. Or maybe it needs all the grease around it and my cleaning was totally unneeded (or even counter productive). But if simply exercising the motor doesn't fix the problem, you might try this.
I took a couple of photos, will post later.
Thanks again for great info.

 

Great followup here guys. This thread will be linked later many times for a potential tilt motor fix.

 

Oops, replied to wrong thread but I can't delete so I'm just saying hello!

 

Hello glenn. Accidents happen.

 

Hello All,

This may or may not be related to the solutions listed but thought I'd try anyhow. So we first got our major storm in San Francisco. Needless to say it's been raining buckets. My 98 VDP decided to act up a little. Here is the problem: I drove in the rain for a few hours, got to my destination. Opened the driver door several times in pouring rain. Now, once I remove the key from the ignition, the steering column won't return to it's original position. However, once I open the driver door, it moves back into its original position. Once I close the door, the steering moves again as if I had a key in the ignition. Also, my alarm won't arm. I suppose it thinks the key is still in the ignition. HELP!!!!