Ok, I tore it all down to the point of tightening the inverse torx (they were loose as hell) on my car, and will put it together tomorrow.

I thought my car had no wheel lock because it was a manual trans (never locked since I got it), but I found out the problem today. The spring that pushes the lock pin upwards into a slot in the lockplate to lock the wheel... Disintegrated in three places. Everywhere I touched, it felt like an old paperclip that had been twisted 50 times and only needed one more to break.

Anybody found a solution to replace this? Getting one at a junkyard seems like a JOKE, it will probably break again. I thought about bending a paperclip to the shape, but think it will break too... ANYONE RAN INTO THIS? LOL

Also, I have a bunch of THICK *** lithium all over the column from dust over the years settling into it. Is there an easy way to clean this crap out so I can spray it up with some new stuff?