chillin014

iTrader: (67)

alright i got halfway in the middle of this swap only to run into a problem...

the clockspring doesnt line up with the new steering wheel. i will post pictures of this in a minute. The old steering wheel has this cut out for the electrical harnesses to come through (its a square shape) its located at about 3 o'clock. The new steering wheel does NOT have this cut out, and the only way i can think to make it work, (which i havent tried because i dont want to turn the clock spring) is that maybe the clock spring on the 98 se , the harnesses come through on the bottom of the wheel at like 6 o'clock. but this means the arrows on the clockspring do not line up because it has to be turned like 30 degrees.

can anyone please confirm this? i need to know if i need to buy a clock spring for the 98 model or if the clock spring can just be turned.....or what the problem is. i need to know asap, i cant drive my car without a wheel lol.

thanks guys (pics in a second)

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

old wheel with the cut out
new wheel with no cut out

clock spring in the correct position

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

after looking on ebay, i am fairly confident that the clocksprings ARE different between the 95-96 and 97-99.
I really wish i would have known about this before hand.. But i guess thats the beauty of experience and modification...always runnin' into unexpected problems.

packerZ

iTrader: (7)

Thank you for the "heads-up"!! I'll have to check when the new wheel comes in. If I run into the same problem, at least I 'm not totally out of the game...I'll be watching your future posts as you complete the swap. Feel free to PM when you are done and we'll compare notes!!!! Again, thank you for the info postings. Doug Parker

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

No problem, I bought one off fanaticrockford for 40 bucks, so when it gets here ill finish the install. I wish I had known about this before hand. The clockspring will most likely be different for you too.

96sleepergle

iTrader: (6)

wow was thinking of steering wheel swap 97 - 99 looks more sporty better than 95-96 try to look around plenty online

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

What? Can you construct your sentences better so I can understand what your trying to say?

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

alright, i've run into another problem The clocksprings are not as similar as i hoped. The 98 clock spring has the front i need to fit on the back of the wheel but it will NOT sit on the hub. There is a harness DIRECTLY mounted on the back of the clock spring which interferes. Ive been looking at the clocksprings and messing with them for awhile and i can not see anyway around this except to ..what....buy a 98 steering wheel hub? i dont understand wtf more its gonna take to make this work and i'm about to give up and sell all this crap off.
The harness doesnt even plug into the new clock spring IF THE WIRES WERE LONG ENOUGH and IF THE CLOCKSPRING WOULD SEAT FLAT.
I will post up pictures shortly. I cant imagine this is simply a SE thing.

I tried to see if there was a way to put the 95 clockspring back on the 98 clockspring front but i dont think there is really. I dont know if i'd feel comfortable soldering in there and stuff. I cant even get the 95 clockspring open, however i've managed to open the 98. brb with pics, gotta re-assemble the car too.

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

just in case anyone wants to know what the inside of clock spring looks like.
so the conclusion of this is- 98 clockspring does not fit for these reasons...
- mounting screw hole do not line up
-harness interferes with mounting surface

even if it did, there would still be a problem with connecting the harness itself since as you can see they are different, and i'd like to note that the newer harness has one extra prong inside of it (totalling 6) the old one has 5.

so im consider buying a hub if it isnt too expensive but even after i do there is still the question of how to connect the wires.

JSutter

iTrader: (46)

Looks like you need 97-99 wiper and light stalks....... Let me investigate my 99 tomorrow.

packerZ

iTrader: (7)

Dude! I am beginning to seriously doubt my project in light of your troubles. I am told that all I need is a 97/99Maxi or 98/99Infiniti SRS air bag(with cover for steering wheel center) and that the clock spring from any of these years will work with my steering wheel (the 99Infiniti) and whichever airbag that I select.. your troubles makes me wonder!! I would be using stalks from 99 so I don't know if that will help, but the clock spring/hub mismatch has me VERY concerned!! Please let us know what you finally end up with clock spring and/or hub for your 97 steering wheel conversion. thanks, Doug

JSutter

iTrader: (46)

I took a bunch o pix, ill get you on AIM later.

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

Thanks jsutter.

And packerz I had no idea this would be like this. I always believed it to be simple a steering wheel swap too, I wish someone who's actually done this swap would chime in. I wonder if the fact that I'm swapping on an SE wheel has anything to do with the excessive ammount of parts needed.
Either way, I have to solder on the harness and I wasn't expecting to have to do that.
There's 5 wires, I wonder how many of those are cruise control. And how I'm gonna do this since the new clockspring has 6 prongs in it.

packerZ

iTrader: (7)

Chillin: Just thought I'd share a potential source of helpful info that has been VERY helpful to me... you might want to drop a PM to i30ds (look for PM link to him in the Infiniti discussions forum). He really seems to be up on this conversion and he might have already come up against the hub/clockwheel issue in converting a "late-model" 4th Generation steering wheel(97/98/99 Maxi-98/99 Infiniti I30) to "early" 95/96 Maxi-96/97 I30. He gave me very straightforward advice...but he never mentioned any of your difficulties, so I don't think he has experienced this potential roadblock!! Keep us posted! Doug

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

i'll check it out, i wonder if people drill their steering wheel to fit the old clockspring or what..

Infamous95

i had a similar problem. i was gonna put the 98-99 steering wheel onto my 95 max as well... but i was told by a lot of people dat it was gonna be a pain in the *** in relations to the clock spring. so on their advice, i dropped the idea. i guess i see y they warned be about doing it... hopefully you'll figure out some way of doing it... so dat i can do it too!.. good luck man.

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

I honestly had no idea it would be this extensive. I have purchased a 99 hub to fit the clockspring on which requires new signal and wiper stalks which I'm assuming won't be plug and play either. So I got the harnesses for them as well. Big thanks to jsutter.
Hopefully I can make this work, sounds like a lot of cutting and soldering as far as wires go.
It would be much simpler if I could just cut a box out for the 95 clocksping to fit but I don't think that's all it would take to make that fit. And we are talking about a steering wheel here, this isn't something I want to ghetto-rig.
Ill update again as soon as I get the new parts.

JSutter

iTrader: (46)

big box o parts

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

you are the sh*t.

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

alright to anyone still reading, i've got some news.

I got my box o parts courtesy of Jsutter which are from a 99 SE.

So, i have the 99se HUB, and it bolts right on. More good news would be that the OLD wiper stalk AND signal stalk fit right into the new hub. This means that no soldering of harnesses were needed to make the stalks work (Since they are different from the 95 to the 99). That was a relief. However, i think there may be a problem with the automatic signal turn-off. The stalks fit right into the new hub but they still WERE different in certain ways. The only problem i foresee is that the blinker will not automatically turn off when you straighten your car out after making your turn. not a big deal in my opinion, i was just relieved to not have to solder 15~ wires.

here's the bad news. The clock spring harness connection does not connect with the one on my 95 as i said before. So you need to get a new harness that will plug into your NEW clockspring. BUT!!! the 99 clockspring, and the clockspring from the 98 which i previously bought are DIFFERENT. The plugs are different on the back of the clockspring. Here's a picture.

front side- identical

backside- different

the 99 clockspring is on the left

both of these clocksprings fit on the hub fine, both of them fit against the steering wheel fine. the problem lies within the harness. You have to have the airbag harness to correspond to your clockspring. So i'll be soldering in the 99 harness to my 95 wiring. The wires arent the same color, and there aren't the same number of wires either, so i need to check the fsm's or something and figure out which ones to connect.

here i go. Hopefully this is the last problem i encounter and this wheel will be on today.

JSutter

iTrader: (46)

Fun, I knew the air bag stuff was different, thats why I sent you just about everything related sans the brain and bags.

Where are all the past swappers? We need some more insight as to what ways have been done.

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

everything went as planned. the bag and wheel are in and working awesome!!
i will take pics in awhile.
it sure would have been nice to have the "past swappers" advice and information. for a minute i started to wonder if there even WERE past swappers.
anyway, im so happy to finally have this thing done. From the drive to my garage from the shop i could tell i am gonna LOVE IT.

i still need to confirm if the signal stock return mechanism is going to work.

Another thing i'd like to note is that i only had to solder 5 wires in total, however there were 7 going to the 95 harness. 3 of the wires were the cruise control buttons, 2 were for the airbag. There were 2 yellow wires left loose..i couldnt figure out what they went to. At first i thought it was the horn, but the horn works perfectly fine so i dont know what they could go to.

darklegend06

iTrader: (11)

this should go in the stickies, for future questions about changing 95-96 steering wheel to 97-99.

gtr_rider

iTrader: (50)

Arent yellow cables usually associated with the airbag

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

i checked the fsm's of both the 95 and the 99. in the 95 the airbag wires are white and blue and in the 99 they were yellow and yellow/black. I have no idea what the 2 extra yellow wires went to. there wasnt even anywhere to connect those wires to on the 99 harness, which seems almost backwards.

packerZ

iTrader: (7)

Chillin- You get an award for sticking with this!! I confess; I would have given up by now. I am still interested to hear whether the signal "canceller" still works! Would you be kind enough to PM me with a recap your project from start to finish with all (years/models) parts and necessary labor (including "revisions"...?
After your success; I want to go forward with the swap-out of the 99I30T (wood/leather wheel) into my 96SE and want to get a "shopping list" for all the parts I will need and prepare for all labor swap/re-install procedures so if you would kindly PM me, please. Thank You for sharing this "journey" with all of us and thank you for responding to all my questions along the way!! Doug

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

the signal canceler does NOT work, as i expected. This is the price to pay for not soldering like 10 wires. I think I will live with it for now and see if it bothers me, it has bothered me a LITTLE bit today. (i am courteous and use my blinker alot). I've been too excited about the new wheel though. I'll post some pictures of the finished product up soon, but its not really "finished" because i still need to install my black dash and get a black steering column cover which I've noticed are also different between the years so hopefully wont be a problem there but i still need to check on it.

btw, does anyone know what would clean the airbag good? I tried some leather cleaner, but it only did so much. My brand new black skin outshines the dirty lookin' airbag.

Sounbwoy

iTrader: (2)

I'm not trying to be a smart a**, but I'm curious to know how do you know the bag WILL work if you need it to?

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

i'm not trying to be a smart *** either but how do you know YOUR bag will work?

Kevlo911

iTrader: (36)

In 98 they changed the SRS so that expains the extra wires. As long as you connected the right wires it will work. Plus it is likely that the Aribag light would be on if it wasn't wired properly.

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

thanks for the confirmation. So the 95 has more wires. I dont understand where they went to though because there was still only 5 wires coming out of the clockspring if i remember correctly. I'll check.

Kevlo911

iTrader: (36)

Dissconnect the airbag and see if the airbag light comes on.

Sounbwoy

iTrader: (2)

I DON'T know. I HOPE it will.
You said you installed it and it's working fine. It's an honest question, but I figured if I put the disclaimer in, you would understand...I guess not.

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

No, i dont think i understood. Can you explain what your getting at exactly? my airbag light is not on...
should i be saying "im not liable for what yall do to yalls cars" ? is that what your getting at?

Sounbwoy

iTrader: (2)

Dude, I'm simply asking if there is a way to know if the airbag is working. If the airbag light not being on is the answer, that's all that you needed to say. We all mod to some extent and we all understand (or we should) that whatever we do to our cars is our responsibility.
If I was "getting at" you saying something else, I would have asked you directly. I don't speak in code.

chillin014

iTrader: (67)

well thats good to know. As far as i know there isnt any real way to tell if your airbag is working or not. I think the dealership can use some sort of diagnosis tool to see if everything is getting a connection however.
a little OT but my mom said there was somethign in the news about repacking of airbags and them being sold as new and the were malfunctioning or something. just came to my mind since we are on the topic.
i need to get a black passengera air bag now, and let me tell you THAT ONE is a bit*h to get out.

Sounbwoy

iTrader: (2)

Yeah, I've heard that too. It's an ongoing issue. Many used cars are being sold with claims that they have airbags, but the bags have been taken out and the CEL jury-rigged to not go off. There is a quite an underground market for airbags, as they get sold overseas and elsewhere.