Paddle shift install in prefacelift

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Paddle shift install in prefacelift

Postby jamescd » Thu Sep 07, 2017 9:34 pm

This will be a walkthrough about how to install paddle shifters from a postfacelift Liberty into a prefacelift.
This will be specific to a car with a 4eat, but I'm assuming that it would be the same with the 5eat.

Just a quick note, I am not responsible for any problems that you may run into while following this walkthrough, or problems arising afterwards. Also, this modification does involve removing the steering wheel and thus the airbag, so be careful.

The first thing that you will need to do is source the parts that you will need.
Before you can install the shifters you need to change the wheel to one without the separate cruise control stalk, as this will foul the paddles.
So you need to find one of those, I will give some brief information on that install further down.
As for the shifters, part no. 83156AG000
While you can use this to buy one online, the cheapest way is to find someone wrecking an auto postFL gt or spec b.
For this install all you "really" need (other than the steering wheel) is this:
Image
However, a shift surround, clock spring, and stalks would be useful as the preFL surrounds don't fit around the paddles (at the time of writing I am still working on a nice way to fab something up).

Okay, so first up, to remove the steering wheel use this tutorial:
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1881734
It's not the exact same wheel, but the removal process is almost the same.
Once you have the wheel and the controls removed, you can rewire the plugs so that the cruise control will work, you can either cut and solder the wires, or take apart the connectors and re-pin them. I opted to re-pin them and it worked well.
This is the basic layout of the two connectors from the preFL after you put the postFL wires in:
Image
Image
This will ensure that the cruise control will work, and also that the lighting will work too. (I have since fitted HU controls, but they aren't 100% right yet, so I'm holding off on a tutorial)

Obviously you can leave the wheel off as you will do the paddle shift first.
So, the first thing that you need to do is remove the steering column surround, the lower half is very easy, there is one phillips head screw in the centre on the bottom. Once you have undone this you can simply pull down on the surround and it will pull off. There are some clips holding it to the upper cover, but they will release, you just have to pull.

Next is the top cover, which sucks.
There are a couple of screws to undo, and one at the bottom in the centre is quite hard to find, but can be seen if you look up from under the column.
Once these are undone you will find that the cover is mechanically held in place by the steering column. To properly remove it you should basically remove the dash, however if you drop the steering column using the adjuster you should get just enough room to jimmy the cover off.

I forgot to take a photo at this point, but you will need to undo the four gold screws which are holding the clock spring in place.
I can't remember 100% if that was the only step, but once you've done that, you should be able to remove the clock spring and the white piece of plastic behind it.

As the paddles don't bolt onto the clock spring you will need to put new screw holes in the paddle mount in order to attach them. This is what I ended up with.
Image
Image

The next thing you need to do is wire the paddles in, there will be three wires, a ground wire, up-shift wire, and down-shift wire. You need to extend these and run them down to the shifter.
Near the shifter, behind the cigarette lighter there should be a grey clip like this.
Image

To make the paddles work you will need to tap into each wire with the corresponding wires from the paddle assembly.

Basically from this point, follow the previous steps in reverse to put everything back together.

Hopefully you end up with something looking like this
Image
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jamescd
 
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Car: 2007 Liberty GT spec b
Real name: James
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