Heated Steering Wheel Mod

Couldn't find any info on this so thought I'd contribute.

Make sure your steering wheel is pointed straight and wheels are straight first.

I ordered a china clock spring off ebay for $16
Harvested a ribbon from 2001 crv clockspring i crashed (it don't need a horn and airbags blown already). I'm sure you can use any ribbon as long as the leads are thick enough. The oem ones on the 3rd gen are thinner than the ones on the old crv.

Folded said ribbon and followed the lines of the preexisting ribbon that bottoms out once you rotate the mechanism all the way one direction. I took a dremel with a carbide cutting tip and routed in 2 lines on the body and then passed the ribbons through the new slots. (This is very difficult.. took me maybe 1 hr to get the damned thing back together with a lot of swearing and trying not to fubar the ribbons up against the wheels. When you disassemble the clockspring, there are a ton of clips on the outside including on the harness slots and 4 on the inside diameter hole. Make sure you take pop off the inside diameter piece first instead of everything at once (wish I figured that out).
Make sure you correctly locate the clockspring so that it wont break the ribbon when you cut the wheel hard. Mine was located with the yellow wheel in the clear window. I marked it with a permanent marker so I could recenter the ribbon once I reassembled it. Push the spring loaded center inner diameter ring in order to unlock the clockspring to allow rotation.

Sorry no photos bc there was alot of frustration looool

Trimmed ribbon ends because they were like 2x as long as the 3rd gen clockspring and hit the ends with a torch, then scraped the wires back so they were shiny to be soldered. The modded ribbon has 6 leads, and I used 3 leads each to solder hot and ground wires. Insulate the ends well.

Ordered steering wheel heating element from ebay $20ish or less. I cut the wires off the fabric with an exacto knife (take extreme care not to nick the wire) because I was afraid I wouldnt be able to get the wheel wrap on tight and now that I had wrapped the wheel, I am sure there is no way you'd be able to bring the seams together if there was extra fabric underneath.
Trimmed leads and took out the 15A fuse (lol) so I could wire it to a small toyota heated wheel switch (ordered off alibaba $7). Fuse replaced to 5A
I did not use a relay because the heater uses less than 3A of power (what the china toyota switches are rated to..... hopefully)
Used a soldering station to test the modded ribbon under heating load @ 10.3V (my china soldering station only goes up to 2A so 10.3V was roughly 2.1A. Took a few mins for wheel to get warm but I am sure at 12V or so it'll warm up with the quickness. The ribbon was cold to the touch when the wheel was hot. (Waited 15mins heat on to see if ribbon ever warmed up and it didn't)

Disconnect harnesses in the wheel and use a pick to depress horn ground terminal (tiny lil fucker, I had missed it and was yanking on it for a min)

Mark your wheel nut, and spline w a marker before you yank the wheel off. Take out oem clockspring and transfer the wheel sensor over to the china clockspring. Reinstall and run the appropriate new wires and plug in the harnesses and horn ground lead.

Ordered wheel leather wrap on Amazon (loncky $60) Very difficult to stitch but take your time, it'll come out great (6 hrs for me) Use super glue on the edges that you tuck. Stretch the leather and swear out loud while your thumbs give out. Stitch it and use the extra needle to poke and pull the threads tighter to bring the leather together as it stretches around the wider parts of the wheel. Make sure you line up the transitions well where it goes from perforated to non perf leather. Take breaks.

Also. Disconnect the battery and wait a few mins before you start playing with your airbag.

I couldn't believe it worked honestly, was thinking the ribbon wouldn't hold up but it was cold.

Note: I was originally going to use all 6 ribbon leads for hot and was going to ground out on the steering column but the column has a slight resistance 0.26 or something when I metered it on continuity mode so I didn't wanna chance anything. 3 leads didn't warm up at all so I feel relatively safe.

My thumbs hurt.

 

That's one of those things that you're always glad you did but never ever will do again.

 

Nice work dude, looks awesome.
*me buying gloves*

 

The real kicker is that he lives in Miami.

 

Very nicely done.

 

Wow, that's commitment to a cause right there!

 

I am so ready. The air here gets cold enough to freeze and grow crystals and I am originally from Houston Tx so I'll never get used to this lol

 

You live where the air hurts.

*WHY WOULD YOU LIVE WHERE THE AIR HURTS!?*

 

Appreciate you sharing the info and pics. I'm interested in tackling this, but want to stick to OEM parts. I wonder if there's a way to swap everything over from the new 4runner heated wheel.

 

What to say after reading and looking...
WOW! Man, what a MOD! I hope, it's reliable... Personally, I'm driving in gloves.
But glad for you!

 

Dudes got some serious sewing skills…