doctor stavros

Yes I know this is a ford forum..... but you guys seem to have the best community / project section, so I thought I'd share a little project I am doing.....

I have a 328ci with the steptronic box:



Now I've decided that I NEED an SMG wheel for flappy paddle fun!
So, first thing I needed to do was source the wheel and slip ring assembily:



So with job one complete, (and me £165 lighter) I inspected the slip ring, only to find that the lying little cumstain had removed the inner clock spring assembily, thus rendering the unit useless.

Anyway, I can sort that out, It's just frustrating that I haven't got all the parts I thought I had.

After a closer look at the bottem wheel fascia (the silver part) it was quite worn, and as I cleaned it up, the paint started wearing straight off!

So after £3 on eBay, and a couple of days wait, a nice 1m long roll of carbon effect vinyl dropped through my letterbox and I began wrapping the fascia (my first ever attempt at something like this)

Tools required: 1 x sharp craft knife, cutting board and a standard hairdryer.



As you can see, the paint has completely worn off at the bottom.
Next, roughly cut the shape of the item you wish to wrap:



Remove the backing label, and place centrally on the plastic, gently rubbing outwards to remove all bubbles:



Gently apply heat, and the vinyl becomes an extremely malleable item that wraps around the contours a dream:



Once you have done the front, tidy up at the rear with a knife, and reassemble to the buttons:



Finally reattach the wheel to the fascia and voila! Job done.



Any tiny bubbles can be easily removed with a sharp pin (not pictured)


My next step is to run wires from the gear assembily to the back of the steering column, then do a little splicing anad attatch the new wheel!

Updates will be added as I get it done.

Hope you enjoy!

Paul.

Garethw1986

nice car looks nice, watch for rear subframe mounts on early e46 328s, i had to get mine repaired, not cheap

doctor stavros

Ok so now it is all finished, here is what I did!

I apologise but I got so heavily involved that I forgot to take pictures.

First, I removed the earth to the battery, and waited for the static to discharge.
Next, I removed the steering wheel and shrouding wheel as usual (pop the airbag from behind, uncouple connectors and remove 17mm retaining bolt)

As my steering wheel controls never worked, and I didn’t have the M3 slip ring, I decided to use the contacts that would normally do the aforementioned controls. So this was the tricky part: getting the signal from the paddles through to behind the centre console.

I started by removing the slip ring and unconnected the rear connector that takes all the steering wheel information back to the car, then using my multimeter carefully belled out the four small pins at the front of the slip ring to the back conector of the slip ring. Then I carefully dissassembled the rear connector plug, removed the two wires I had identified, and removed the bullet connectors.

Next, I soldered the ends of two cores from some 8core alarm cable to the bullets, then carefully re-fitted them to the connector and reassembled the outer assembly.

With this connector back in place place, I belled out the front pins of the slip ring to the two ends of my 8core, and the result was good J I had my contacts.

Next I had to splice the two wires from the steering wheel paddles into the small connector cable for the now redundant steering wheel controls. This was fairly straightforward, using some solder and insulation tape (I had no heatshrink available)

Now the acid test. I connected the wheel back up to the car, found a good ground for one of the prongs on my meter, then connected the other to the end of the cable I had put in, and pulled a paddle……….. And it only bloody worked!!! So I fully reassembled the wheel assembly. Now it was time to concentrate on the gearstick area….

Upon pulling apart the leather gaitor, and unscrewing the window control surround, I quickly identified the four wire connector that carried the gear up/down information (pins two and three carry the signals that I need to splice into), and also even quicker realised that splicing this was not an option due to how short the cable was. So I dug out an old cd-rom audio cable, and a universal ten pin adaptor cable, and made up a four cable jumper lead, while splicing in two extra wires for my gear selector.

Next, I connected the jumper wire between the four pin cable, and connected in the paddles to the flying leads I had spliced in, and started the car.

I pulled into sports mode, pulled down for a gear, but it went up, and vice versa from the other paddle. So a quick ‘pitstop’ to swap the polarity over on my cable from the paddles, and I tried it again. AND IT WORKED!!!!! Fully functional paddle shift.

To say I was happy would be an understatement. And to think that I have now got the full paddle shift conversion done for only £165 and a bit of head scrathing makes me even more pleased.


Hope this helps some of you, if anyone has any questions, then feel free to ask.


Over and out

Paul

doctor stavros

Update:
Start with the centre console gear surround

Roughly shaped

Cut to shape

Started to wrap

Nearly done

Switches back in

All mounted and fitted

Happy days

Zetecfiesta

looks nice, you should do the top half of your steering wheel as well!

doctor stavros

I'd never get the carbon stripe exact enough against the bottom part for it not to look odd. Also, I don't want to overkill on the wrapped items, Possibly I'll not do any more

rallycross

I like what you did there good skills to make it all work

sallan81

like the carbon effect vinyl work , may try this myself.

essieford

its nice what you have done looks good but I am not really into the stick on stuff prefer the real stuff and I am not really into the m badges being
on a BMW that clearly isn't one but as I said looks good.

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

What happenee to this car.

rs clint

nice looklng car

doctor stavros

I sold it for a Merc AMG C32
Thanks