Aftermarket steering wheel Hub adapter - help

Post by **Custommx3** » June 22nd, 2005, 3:13 pm

Well, I purchased a BOSS hub adapter off of ebay and ive run into a small dillema. The clock spring connector is in the way. For those who have put on a aftermarket steering wheel and yours came w/ cruise control how did u manage to get past the clock spring connector?

Heres what I have...

Any help is appreciated.

ooELMOoo · Post by **ooELMOoo** » June 22nd, 2005, 4:26 pm

I hated that part lol...didnt know what to do at first so i just cut it off lol then solderd new wires on that wernt in the way.

bmwm3guy · Post by **bmwm3guy** » June 22nd, 2005, 8:11 pm

bingo, thats what I did too... I undid the screws for that thing, and cut the wires... Ill re-wire the horn one day... do you know which wire the horn is of those three wires? and how to hook it up? I have the same BOSS kit.

PATDIESEL · Post by **PATDIESEL** » June 23rd, 2005, 2:50 am

That sounds like a winner. Gut it, chop it into a million pieces and JB weld it back together....
hehe jk, I don't see any other way.

Post by **Custommx3** » June 23rd, 2005, 3:20 pm

Im curious....

If hooked a button directly to the plug in the clock spring.. would it activate the horn.. if so I can eliminate the black ring on the bottom of the hub.. and everything would be fine.
Ideas?

Nd4SpdSe · Post by **Nd4SpdSe** » June 25th, 2005, 12:47 pm

I did the same thing, chopped it off flush, I only ran the one wire for the horn cause i relocated my cruise control controls behind the ignition

Custommx3 wrote:Im curious....

If hooked a button directly to the plug in the clock spring.. would it activate the horn.. if so I can eliminate the black ring on the bottom of the hub.. and everything would be fine.
Ideas?

(Sorry, what are you refering to as the clock spring?)

The horn wire, if i remember right, is the pin in the connector to right (when it's rotated on the top)
Easy way to test the horn, get a piece of wire and connect it to ground, and try connecting to each of the connectors (making sure the CC is off, just in case), the horn will sound when you have the right one.

From the chassis electrical to the ring, the cruise control wires are Brown(Ground) & Red/Green. Whatever the color for the 3rd one is (i'm thinking white, I didn't have to remember which one what is) is the horn.

Also one thing i noticed on the hubs is that the wire that's on the hub, on my momo hub anyway, wasn't grounded, it's isolated from ground by a plastic ring. So don't connect the horn (white) to that red, cause it won't work. Unless you wanna deal with running a wire back for ground (which I wouldn't suggest cause of the PITA it is to get the wiring done, the last thing you want is another wire), try to find a place locally on the hub to ground the horn, myself I used one of the screwes that hold the steering wheel on the hub as the ground mounting point.

nope-mx3 · Post by **nope-mx3** » June 25th, 2005, 3:26 pm

I just bought a BOSS hub and steering wheel from the same place.

I dont have cruisecontrol, so would I have the same "trouble" aswell?

nope-mx3

Nd4SpdSe · Post by **Nd4SpdSe** » June 25th, 2005, 4:38 pm

I've never seen what the non-cruise control setup looks like, but it would be save to assume that the basic wiring would be there, so the modifications you would need to do is wiring up the horn, but it still requires modifing the same ring since it uses the same wiring "harness" as the cruise control wires, the only difference is that you don't need to do any wiring for the cruise control controls since you don't have any.

As i mentioned earlier, the hubs I've seen, the wire that's in them are basically useless.

(i don't wanna sound like I'm dumbing it down for anyone, I'm just trying to be as descriptive as possible for everyone). The white wire is the power wire for the horn, so if you touch that wire to any ground/chassis, the horn will sound. Literally, the stock steering wheel (Mine doesn't have air bags, so this is what mine had) inside has 2 metal plates sprung back, the white wire connects to one, the second one in essence connects to the steering column, the column goes to the chassis, and the chassis is the ground for the whole car. So you press the horn, the 2 plates touch, completing the circuit, and the horn sound off.

An aftermarket steering wheel's horn is different, but works like any momentary push button, but basically the horn, doesn't matter it's design, *should* have 2 connectors. Of course, your going to want to get the white wire from the horn to one of them, the other connector needs to find ground. The most obvious, or what would be except it isn't, would be to connect the other connector to the wire that comes part of the hub as ground. Ironicly, that wire is NOT ground, it connects to brass-color metal plate at the back of the hub, and it's isolated from ground, electrically a dead end. You need to find another route. I used my handy multimeter to test connectiivty and found that the part that the steering wheel bolts onto, complete a circuit with the part that mounts to the column (Barry's 4th pic easilyl shows that, the color of the metal part that the steering wheel bolts onto is the same as the part that goes directly ontot he steering column, essentially the came chunk of metal) metal conducts electricity et voilà, you've found your ground.

jschrauwen · Post by **jschrauwen** » August 4th, 2005, 11:09 am

Nd4SpdSe wrote:I did the same thing, chopped it off flush, I only ran the one wire for the horn cause i relocated my cruise control controls behind the ignition

I'd like to see that application Mike (I know, it's in getting it's paint job - nuts). I just picked up a MazdaSpeed Steering Wheel (SWEEEEEET) and before I install I thought I might dig up an old thread to help me along. Has anyone installed a MS steering wheel? If so is it still possible to retain the cruise control on the side hub part of that steering wheel? I realize that it might require a homemade mouting bracket or drilling into the side of the hub or both but a little guidance before I get to the point of no return would be nice. Even any info wrt retaining the cruise control onto an after market hub/wheel might even help.

Nd4SpdSe · Post by **Nd4SpdSe** » August 4th, 2005, 5:34 pm

I though you already took a peak at my controls setup...I'd be more than glad to take a look at it, we could easilly work something out, I know that wiring really well, but you'll be surprised as the size of the box that the buttons on the stock wheel are connected to...

[Edit]After finding the pics of the wheel (i believe you got it from Marlon, right?), There will be no direct way to mount the controls on the wheel[/Edit]

jschrauwen · Post by **jschrauwen** » August 5th, 2005, 10:24 am

Nd4SpdSe wrote:I though you already took a peak at my controls setup...I'd be more than glad to take a look at it, we could easilly work something out, I know that wiring really well, but you'll be surprised as the size of the box that the buttons on the stock wheel are connected to...

I can't recollect how it looked. How surprised, do you mean there's a huge box or circuit board that's inside the original hub?

Nd4SpdSe wrote:After finding the pics of the wheel (i believe you got it from Marlon, right?), There will be no direct way to mount the controls on the wheel

Ya, got it from Marlon. You mean to say that there's not enough space inside the MS wheel hub to accomodate? If there is, I'm not worried if all that's required is to cut a small slot along along the steering wheel edge of the hub to mount the CC switch.

Nd4SpdSe · Post by **Nd4SpdSe** » August 5th, 2005, 10:54 am

It's hard to describe...actually it makes me wish i took pics of the process, but ya, there is a small curcit board inside the controls, but the large portion of the size is due to the casing and the levers, and the system to spring back the levers.

Actually it's not unside the hub but until the wheel itself. It may be possible to rig something to get it inside the hub..i never though about doing it that way, but it could work. But I'm almost positive it's possible to wire up your own momentary push-button switches if you've considered something that way.

Nd4SpdSe · Post by **Nd4SpdSe** » August 6th, 2005, 3:12 pm

Here John, I got the schematic off of Grants site and added the wire color corrections

jschrauwen · Post by **jschrauwen** » August 6th, 2005, 6:43 pm

Mike, thanks for the diagram. Ya, wouldn't ya know that the 2 switches were intigrated into a tiny circuit board. When selecting the SET/COAST button the current passes through a 240 ohm resistor and the RESUME/ACCEL button has a 910 ohm resistor for the current to pass through. I put a meter on each end of tne blue and black wire just to see what the incorporated switch introduced ohm's-wise. Each switch in itself has about 8 - 9 ohms resistance. The new momentary switches are about 7 ohms. Perhaps the electronic guru's can tell me if the overall circuit will be too sensitive to the modest difference between the different switches. BTW, I sourced a couple of mini momentary push button switches. The 3 wire connector that sits at the 12 o'clock position when the old steering wheel is removed fits nicely into the void space of the MazdaSpeed steering hub adapter. Nothing to cut or trim whatsoever. I didn't even have to remove any of the plastic on the steering column. The functionality of the self-cancelling turn signals still remains intact also. Of that 3 wire connector, I just cut the blue and black wires about an inch away from the cruise control switch. I left the separate horn wire intact save for the male connector on the end which had to be changed to a female connector to attach directly to the horn switch (single wire). I'll utilize the wiring schematic from above to incorporate the 2 new mini switches. All thats required is to drill 2 applicable size holes in the side of the steering wheel hub adapter, connect the blue and black wires with the appropriate resistors inline and bingo. I have the same functionality as the oem cruise control switch, located in the same general location as oem and all that one sees is 2 small black buttons, one above the other .... sweet. Now to get out the magnifying glass to see them damn colour codes on this box (105 of them) of resistors I got. Since radio shack didn't have exact value resistors to meet my needs, I'm going to have to do a composite of 3 to 4 resistors in series just to reach the required values. I'd prefer to try and find a single resistor since there's not alot of dead space available inside the hub adapter. As I said before, I could use the wisdom of an electronic gruru and perhaps they could tell me if there's a better way to source a single resistor in the values I mentioned above, or even if it's possible.
Grants or Taras, time to flex that electronic muscle ... LOL, actually anyone could help here.
john

Nd4SpdSe · Post by **Nd4SpdSe** » August 7th, 2005, 10:23 am

Radio Shack, er, The Source should be able to order the resistors you need. I know the place in Port Colborne, although only a Source reseller and not an owned store, can order anything I need. I know there are a few places in TO that sells anything electronics, although I've never been to one, my friend has been tho, but i don't think it's worth your drive to TO for measly resistors.

Most resistors have a gold band indicating a 5% varience in the marked value.

You can mix match resistors any way you wish, but extra wire and solder points can add slight resistance, which would be good or bad, pending on what your working with. With your current switches, even with that slights difference, your only about 0.8% off the allowed varience with the 240ohm resistor, so It's nothing to worry about. Ideally, as you said, it would be recommended to find a resistor with the exact value, but if you need to use more, what I would recommend if getting a small circuit board from The Source and solder them on there. Resistors don't like supporting weight, and those leads aren't the best to work with. If you need to use more, you just keep the real estate small by zig-zagging them on the curcuit board /\/, that way, you should be able to keep the size less than 1" square, instead of soldering them up in series as a wire and extending the wire a few inches, also making it hard to feed/organise in the hub, plus you'll have soldering point for the wires for the controls.