So I found this website looking for a solution to an actuator that triggered as soon as ignition was turned on as well as cruise control that would not turn on. I was reluctant to tear into it without some iside info so I hit the net to see what others had found.

I found diagrams, advice, heresay and eventually thread #382734 here that actually helped, it was closed so I thought I would summarize my experience.

Have a multimeter so I probed the brake switch, it is the bottom switch on the brake. The lines in had 12v with one being always on and one being switched. The lines out behaved appropriate with the brake pressed, with the always on circuit powering brake lights and the switched circuit powering the actuator located under the center console.

I removed the cover by grabbing the cup holders and pulling up which popped loose the first corners. I could see the white button popping down as soon as I powered on the ignition. I back probed the connecttions and found red/yel powered on with the key, pink/light grn powered with brake applied, yellow was powered as well but I can't remember if it was tied to ignition or always on.

After fretting over the myriad of almost helpful posts on this, I found the above named post and decided to tear into it.

I took out the 4 bolts for the shifter assembly. Tilted it over and took out the two torx screws holding the actuator on. Then I loosened the backlight, snipped the ties, released the grey conmector on the passenger side and after looking with a mirror I saw that the overdrive button slid to the rear off of the connector that holds it up under the chromish bezel. That allowed me to pry the catch up to release the connector, and with this the whole assembly was fee to remove.

I opened the plastic box and found the transistor that is the weak link. I desoldered it and looked around in my goody box of electronic components, some of which I had from a prior hobby of micro bot building, but most of which were just collected from old components from a variety of places. I chose an aluminum cased NPN transistor that was rated at an amp: 2N2102

I soldered it in, plugged everything in and lo and behold it worked. After reassembly I took it for a test drive and cruise control worked as well.

One more note. After I opened the box, I found a connector on the PCB where the cable plugged onto the board. I was afriad to open it over the open console for frear of losing a tiny spring or a detent ball or some other tiny, 0.001 cent part that is irreplacable. After opening it I found the components large and easy to manage, so if you have nimble fingers, you can remove the torx screws, open the box, unplug the cable from the board and take the board to work on it without having to cut the ties and disconnecting the harness connectors, which takes up most of the time of the repair.

My repair was free but I probably could have picked up a suitable transistor tomorrow for a couple bucks at the most. The part was $155 for the cheapest dealer in Dallas and online prices ranged from $138 - $220 from a variety of vendors with the cheapest vendors seeming a bit questionable or too international to trust.

I am posting this from my phone so it looks like I have to log into the full version to post pics.