Two weeks on and I've been working on a few of projects for the Smart. I think this is going to need multiple posts...
Firstly, I caved in and bought the paddle shift wheel. Fitting should've been easy. It wasn't.
I finally decided that I wanted to add the paddles, after finding 3D printable paddle extensions that address the only drawback of them - they're quite small. I was also watching the prices and availability on eBay and not only was there only one left for sale from the seller I had been watching since last year (they had three when I first started looking), the others for sale were also considerably more expensive.
I had read about issues with the steering angle sensor cartridge on the back of the wheel and that a way around the issue is to leave that in place on the car, dismantle the wheel around it and then build up the new wheel, after taking that apart too of course. The steering wheels are practically identical underneath with only changes in the plastic parts and the addition of the paddle shift modules and wiring. It should be a straight swap with the wiring just being unplugged from one and into another...
Nope. The wires on my old wheel are different to the new wheel and to the one shown in the guides. Rather than a nice, neat plug the old wheel has a bullet and spade (ish) connector combo. Sigh. This was a nasty surprise and I had to cut the plug off the sensor cartridge that came with the paddle shift wheel, cut the terminals off the ends of the wires in my existing sensor cartridge and join the two with a nice spliced and soldered connection. Fortunate that I have a butane soldering iron as I don't have power to the garage and it's about 70m from the house as the cable flies. This soldering iron also shrunk the heat shrink nicely, although it burnt it a bit. It works very quickly!
I didn't want to do this but the alternative was trying to use the other steering angle sensor cartridge that may never work, they're very fragile.
The connector under the dash also has to be swapped, I had full view of this when I was re-sealing the water channels but didn't want to buy the paddle shift wheel at the time and ignored it. I had to get down on the floor again and reach under the dash. After the issues with the SAM last year I've become quite good at removing the plugs quickly, but reaching the connectors at the back of the footwell was another thing entirely. It would've been much easier if I was left handed or if it was a LHD car but eventually I got the plugs swapped over.
The wheel was built then built back up, this was quite a quick job and I could test the paddles. I should mention that at this point I still didn't actually know that this would work, I was only assuming that the SAM I bought had the paddle shift codes as it had cruise control. Fortunately it did have the codes and the paddle shift was working immediately. That's a relief, it would've cost me another £50 or so to have to code added and I would have to wait until I take it for a service. I took it out for a test drive and it worked perfectly, however there was one issue - the steering wheel wasn't straight. With the added confusion of wires I wasn't expecting and my haste to get the wheel off I forgot to mark the original position of the wheel...
Oh well, off with all of the trim again so I can move it over one spline on the shaft. I had originally marked the shaft so I had to modify my markings.
Why not mark my visit to the centre of this wheel while I was here?
All built up with the paddle extensions. This picture was actually taken after it was built up the first time but let's pretend this is complete...
I've completed another project so I'll post that tomorrow.