Hi all. A bit of a bizarre one. I own a mk2 focus RS and rather unfortunately, I cannot stand the steering wheel! It's the large airbag unit for me, its an eye sore. I know there's a way to install the steering wheel from the mk3 focus rather easily, with the functioning airbag. My query is, would it be possible to have the hands free controls re-wired from the paddle on the mk2 to the steering wheel controls on the mk3 wheel? I just feel like this would be so much nicer.

 

Naturally I will not be doing the wiring myself. I'd like like to know if anyone has had success from this before I commit to buying a nice aftermarket mk3 wheel.

 

Cheers!

Edited November 4, 20223 yr by Tummy
Included information and thanks

The fact that no one has responded to this question yet is an illustration of how complex a wheel conversion now is. (In the 70s & 80s you just needed a socket and an Allen key to put on a nice Momo lol) 

There have been folk on here who have done it but the time taken is OK on a personal hobby project. You couldn't pay someone to do it!!

The wheel swap still isn't difficult.  

It's swapping the audio remote that's the problem here.  The integrated wheel buttons use a totally different system to the old Mk2 era paddle as far as I know.

If anyone knows how to do it, it'll be @JW1982 !!

Everything is possible.

I used to have a Mondeo MK4.5 steering wheel in my Focus MK2. The amount of work required to install a Focus MK3 steering wheel into a Focus Mk2/Mk2.5 is basically the same as what I did.

As Tom already mentioned the electronics are the biggest challenge.

* Fitment = plug and play (Ford uses the tapered hexagon shaft for over 20+ Years).
* Airbag = almost plug and play (only requires to cut a locating tab of the connector).
* Audio Controls = not plug and play. Resistance values however are identical. Minor modifications of the circuit board are required.
* Cruise Control = not plug and play at all. Resistance values and circuitry are completely different. Major modifications of the circuit board are required.
* Trip Computer Control = not plug and play at all. Resistance values and circuitry are completely different. Major modifications of the circuit board are required.

To solve these problems on the Mondeo steering wheel I designed and developed my own custom made circuit boards. This was easier and faster than modifying the original circuit boards.

Another point of concern is the clockspring. The Focus MK2/MK2.5 clockspring has a limited amount of tracks. The Focus MK2/MK2.5 clockspring has less tracks than the Mondeo MK4/MK4.5 and Focus MK3/MK3.5 steering wheels require. To solve this I designed and developed a microprocessor that combines the Audio Control and Trip Computer Control resistance signals into 1 signal that is communicated over a single clockspring track. At the steering collumn side a 2nd microprocessor processes the combined signal and splits it back into the original signals.

The Focus MK2.5 RS does not have Cruise Control. In this case you might get away with the amount of clockspring tracks. When combining 2 ground tracks of the clockspring into 1 there should just be enough clockspring tracks to make everything work.

Note that I performed this modification more than 9 Years ago. I had to reverse engineer everything myself. Mainly because of this it took me 3 Months before everything was fully functional.

 

 

Well that was a very interesting read Wilco, sounds like it was a straight forward modification and @Tummy should have it all done by next weekend 😉

It looks like Tummy is a fully paid up member of the OPW club 😧

On 11/5/2022 at 9:02 PM, JW1982 said:

Everything is possible.

* Fitment = plug and play (Ford uses the tapered hexagon shaft for over 20+ Years).
* Airbag = almost plug and play (only requires to cut a locating tab of the connector).
* Audio Controls = not plug and play. Resistance values however are identical. Minor modifications of the circuit board are required.
* Cruise Control = not plug and play at all. Resistance values and circuitry are completely different. Major modifications of the circuit board are required.
* Trip Computer Control = not plug and play at all. Resistance values and circuitry are completely different. Major modifications of the circuit board are required.

To solve these problems on the Mondeo steering wheel I designed and developed my own custom made circuit boards. This was easier and faster than modifying the original circuit boards.

Another point of concern is the clockspring. The Focus MK2/MK2.5 clockspring has a limited amount of tracks. The Focus MK2/MK2.5 clockspring has less tracks than the Mondeo MK4/MK4.5 and Focus MK3/MK3.5 steering wheels require. To solve this I designed and developed a microprocessor that combines the Audio Control and Trip Computer Control resistance signals into 1 signal that is communicated over a single clockspring track. At the steering collumn side a 2nd microprocessor processes the combined signal and splits it back into the original signals.

The Focus MK2.5 RS does not have Cruise Control. In this case you might get away with the amount of clockspring tracks. When combining 2 ground tracks of the clockspring into 1 there should just be enough clockspring tracks to make everything work.

Note that I performed this modification more than 9 Years ago. I had to reverse engineer everything myself. Mainly because of this it took me 3 Months before everything was fully functional.

Thanks for sharing this Wilco. I particularly like the 'everything is possible' attitude 🙂

I'm embarking on a similar project - Mondeo Mk4.5 which I would like to swap to a Fiesta Mk8 flat-bottomed type wheel or (probably simpler) the Mondeo Mk5. At a minimum I'll need to get the airbag and menu controls working. Audio and Cruise Control would be a plus.

I've sourced the wheels and squibs, along with a cheap Mondeo Mk4.5 wheel and squib so that I can do some testing off the car and work out what's possible.

Physical fitment as you've noted, will be fine.

The airbag connectors seem the same on the Fiesta and Mondeo Mk5, slightly different to the Mk4.5 but that's just a connector mismatch issue.

The buttons need some investigation. I note they always seem to be separated into 4 logical groups. I am prepared for the fact I'll likely need to modify the boards or create my own. The crux of the work is going to be mapping out the resistances to the buttons in each group and this is my starting point.

Taking the Fiesta wheel harness as an example, the RH switches group seems to have the following wiring;

GREEN, PURPLE, BROWN, GREY, PURPLE, BLACK

LH switches group is

GREEN, GREY, GREEN, BLACK, BROWN, BLACK

GREEN would seem to be power

BLACK would seem to be GND

It's just a case of working where to measure those resistance, which is likely to be a case of elimination...

 

Darren

37 minutes ago, DGE said:

Thanks for sharing this Wilco. I particularly like the 'everything is possible' attitude 🙂

I'm embarking on a similar project - Mondeo Mk4.5 which I would like to swap to a Fiesta Mk8 flat-bottomed type wheel or (probably simpler) the Mondeo Mk5. At a minimum I'll need to get the airbag and menu controls working. Audio and Cruise Control would be a plus.

I've sourced the wheels and squibs, along with a cheap Mondeo Mk4.5 wheel and squib so that I can do some testing off the car and work out what's possible.

Physical fitment as you've noted, will be fine.

The airbag connectors seem the same on the Fiesta and Mondeo Mk5, slightly different to the Mk4.5 but that's just a connector mismatch issue.

The buttons need some investigation. I note they always seem to be separated into 4 logical groups. I am prepared for the fact I'll likely need to modify the boards or create my own. The crux of the work is going to be mapping out the resistances to the buttons in each group and this is my starting point.

Taking the Fiesta wheel harness as an example, the RH switches group seems to have the following wiring;

GREEN, PURPLE, BROWN, GREY, PURPLE, BLACK

LH switches group is

GREEN, GREY, GREEN, BLACK, BROWN, BLACK

GREEN would seem to be power

BLACK would seem to be GND

It's just a case of working where to measure those resistance, which is likely to be a case of elimination...

 

Darren

This thread makes me smile. When I was young enough to want to change my steering wheel from factory, all I had to do was remove old wheel (one single nut), Install a Momo boss, and screw on new wheel with 6 x machined bolts LOL Best of luck guys...

Tell me about it... there's a lot to be said for older tech 🙂  The socket and 6 hex nuts recollection made me feel very nostalgic. Even easier was the quick-release Momo I used to have on my Caterham - remove it by just pulling the collar, change it completely by undoing 3 nuts 😄

A bit of time with the multimeter and I've mapped out the resistance of most of the buttons of the Fiesta Mk8 wheel;

Menu, Back, Ok, Up and Down

Skip Fwd, Skip back

Resume, Set- and Set+

 

The only buttons I'm struggling with are the Vol+, Vol- and Mute which I can't find a continuity or resistance for on any of the pin combinations.

Update - now mapped 'em all!

I'm using noid probes to read off the pins but they're still pretty difficult to inser fully and I think I must've had a bad connection with them. Second attempt worked to find the missing resistances.

 

Next job is to log the resistances of the Mondedo Mk5 and Mk4.5 wheels and see how the three compare...