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This message is marked as Important.
Subject: I have also joined the Paddle Shift club! (loooong)
Author: sealbeach740 : member since January, 2004 : 9400 posts
Posted on: 2007-12-30 13:41:28       		Bookmark and Share

Yesterday, James (JL), Allan (apwe38/allan), Sean (LA-Sean), Manith (sorry, can't recall your BB name) and Erik (socal7s Erik) came over to hang out, have lunch & basically install my paddle shift steering wheel. I didn't exactly take total How-To install pics, but I do have some that should give you the basic idea. First, I do want to thank Roger (TXdarth) for his many, patient replies to my emails about this install, and to Albo for his very helpful links. But, especially to the guys that came over yesterday & spent their Saturday afternoon pitching in & helping with this install.

To do this mod, you need to have the steptronic tranny, a steering wheel with the paddles - mine was from a 2005 E46 M3, the matching airbag (32 30 6 757 891) and the slip ring (32 30 6 757 891).

First, definately, unplug the negative battery cable, and make SURE there is no way it will accidentally spring back & touch the battery. Next, the original airbag had to come off. On my sport, the airbag is held on by two Torx screws that you can see on the back of the steering wheel (T27, I believe).


Then, just unplug the connector (slides right off) from the slip ring. It goes thru the slot in the steering wheel & just pulls off. Now, the airbag can be set somewhere with the BMW roundel facing the sky (to be safe).


Here's a pic of steering wheel with the airbag removed. You can see how you have access to the slip ring connectors with the wheel still attached. The left connector is blank in my original slip ring, the center connector is for the airbag, and the right connector is for the buttons on the steering wheel.


Now, to remove the steering wheel, have someone hold the steering wheel while you loosen the 17mm bolt in the center (you can see the bolt in the previous pic). You need some leverage as that bolt is tight (I used my torque wrench to loosen mine). If you can see it, in the previous pic there are two little notches that you can use to ensure your wheel is aligned up straight. With the bolt taken off, you can just slide the steering wheel off. Here's a pic of the slip ring (with the steering wheel off).


So far, no snags, and not to difficult!

Next, the slip ring (& levers) has to come off. There are 4 torx bolts that hold the slip ring to the steering shaft. To get access to those, you need to split the clamshells in half that surround the steering wheel shaft. There are screws on the top & bottom half of the clamshells. Once those are out, you can press on the bottom edges of the top clamshell and wiggle (easily) the bottom clamshell to get them to split. Once they are split, you can carefully pull the bottom one down, and lift the top one up. You need to just slide the slip ring with levers off now. Here's a pic of the slip ring and levers removed.


The 3 levers basically just slide off the slip ring by pushing/pulling the little tabs on the sides of each lever. This will be obvious once you have this out. Next, grab your new slip ring (you need a new slip ring because you need to have one that has the electrical connector on the right of the 3 connectors (2 pins) - this is how the paddles info gets transfered to steptronic tranny. You basically run a set of wires from that connector, down under the steering shaft, under the console to the steptronic shift lever. I used a 2 pin connector from a PC that had a little LED attached to the end (for a power indicator on the PC, I believe) - just cut the LED off & add extra wire to make it longer. Now, you can just slide on your original 3 levers to your new slip ring, and re-install the slip ring with the new 2 pin connector attached. Before you install the new wheel & airbag, you need to thread the 2 pin wire from the back of the slip ring to the tranny shift on the console. I had to remove the carpetted piece that runs below the console and above the tranny hump on the drivers side - remove one phillips screw and slide the carpetted piece towards the front of the car. This gives you access to an area under the console.

You can now button up the clamshells (make sure no wires are in the way or binding). Next slide the new steering wheel back on to the steering shaft, making sure to align the notches. Then, put the black bolt back on (it tightens to 60 ft-lbs). Attatch the connectors for the steering wheel buttons & the airbag connectors to the slip ring thru the steering wheel. On the two connectors that will connect to the back of the airbag, you just slide the plastic snaps up by carefully expanding the edges & lifting the cap up. The connectors are color coded so you can't go wrong here. Slide the connectors onto the airbag connectors & push the caps down to snug them in place. The new airbag then just snaps into place - there are two stubs that push the spring levers apart as you push the airbag into place. Now, you've got your steering wheel & airbag installed! In the pic, you can see the wires we ran from the 2 pin connector to the shift area.


Now, you have an option. You can just wire tap in the two wires to the middle of the 4 wires that in the purple/marroon connector next to the shift lever. The connector just slides apart to give easier access, but there isn't much room to work in there. The leather boot just pulls up from the black trim piece that has the P/R/N/R info, and the black trim piece just pulls up from the wook console. What we decide to do was to build a custom insert that goes in between the 4 wire connectors. Basically it's a male 4 pin connector on one end, with a female 4 pin connector on the other, with 2 wires tapped into the middle 2 wires, and the outter two wires just go from the male directly to the female connector. Here's a pic of that "extension" in place. I have to give a big shout out of thanks to Sean for his carefull soldering & making this "extension" - it was very small & tedious work. Sean even used hot glue to protect & strengthen the connections. All we needed to do was to split the original connectors apart & slip this new "extension" in between. You can see our temporary connections of the two wires tapped into the "extension" and the two wires from the 2 pin slip ring from the steering wheel. This is how by pulling on the paddles, that info (ground) is sent to the steptronic tranny.


All that's left is to snap the black console piece back down next to the wood console, and snap the leather boot back into place. Before you snug this all back up, you'll need to re-connect your negative cable to the battery, put in your key & start your 7!! I did this from the passengers seat, just to be safe...... Next try your paddles by moving the shifter into sport mode (to the left of the Drive slot) press the + paddle. If nothing happens, try the - paddle & see if the two wires just need to be reversed. Once you're sure the + & - paddles work OK, button it up & go on your test drive!!!

We forgot to take a group pic of all the guys, but here's one from the summer. Allan is missing from this pic (sorry Allan!!). Left to right it's Erik, James, Manith, me and Sean.


We went to our usual lunch at Claim Jumper and caught up on what everybody's been up to. Thanks, guys, it was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Manith, thanks a ton for all your work/help, and Sean, thanks again for creating that "extension".


Steptronic Sealbeach740
2000 740iS, oxford green/tan 56k - Nav, 16x9, MKIV, Basslink, clear corners, TV, TFT LCD screen in back, reversed steptronic +/- shift mode,
backup camera, gauge rings, chrome MPars, AIC hi-beams, Hoen fogs, quad brake lights, 6 disc DVD changer,
CDC/DVD switch relay(for stereo DVD audio inputs), ///M pedals, DDEs controled by a Euro fog light switch & painted calipers with BMW lettering.
1995 525i, also oxford green/tan 143k - stock, except for upgraded headlights (much needed!)
2001 RX300 - very stock, very comfortable, very dependable, very boring.....

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