Installed shift paddles and facelift steering column into my pre facelift car.

[KAWABMW7]

After I'd seen the topics here with the paddle shift steering wheel from E46 M3 I thought that's my next mod.

But the problem was that the M3 steering wheel doesn't fit on a pre facelift car. I saw the topic from Renegade (Bimmerboard) with the wheel adaptation but that was not an option for me.

So I decided to try something new and bought shift paddles from a Mercedes AMG and an old M-steering wheel to try to get them on it.

Here is the result.















Then I was thinking that you need 2 free contacts on the slip ring from a heated steering wheel for the shift paddles to work. As the pre facelift slip ring doesn't have these 2 contacts I decided to change my slip ring to one from a facelift car. Went to the junk yard and bought the complete steering column and tried to get it work on my pre facelift car.

Here the pre facelift steering column.





All clear.



Need to change some wires of wipers and turn signal.



The facelift steering column.





And the slip ring from heated steering wheel.





Testing with the steering wheel from Edwin.



Then the steering wheel with the shift paddles.













Made the connection for the shift paddles.





Then I used 3 ignition switches to make one good one so that I could keep my own key.
From 2 ignition switches I cut of the steel ring and from the third I cut the back so the steel ring keeps good.







The switches from pre facelift and facelift are in several ways different.







[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8109yj8Bk3g"][/ame]

[KAWABMW7]

The small plates are both the same so I placed the ones from my original ingintion switch in the one from the facelift.





My own key in a facelift ignition switch.



The steel ring back in place and the switch is ready.



Next step was changing the LCM (light control modul), the LCM from the facelift is different. Turn signal in a pre facelift runs over 2 wires to the LCM, in a facelift it goes over 1 wire and it is in a different place on the LCM. Same is voor high beam, so I changed the pins to the right place and it all works fine now. I even have ‘follow me home’ now.









Some pics of the final result.









The video on Youtube.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8109yj8Bk3g[/ame]

[jbondbmw]

That's pretty damn cool. Nice mod!

[Edwin NL]

Nice mod Bro!
Were did I see this before??? LOL

[boxjelly]

Sick

[steve0suprem0]

Way cool! How did the paddles set you back? I'd imagine this is way more economical than the m3 wheel. Though I kinda have my heart set on the 135i wheel.

[neep8]

Man that is sweet, I really like that you can use the e38 wheel to do that.

[2DYE4]

wow dude, very nice work. Thanks for posting!

[SEVEN40iL]

love your resourcefullness and patience to do these amazing mods

Enjoy those paddles

[m60 makes it go]

how do you upgrade a non sport shift to sport shift? is it possible? i have a 95 740i

[4liter]

Nice mod bro!

[Alpine6And7]

^ you have to do a steptronic retrofit.....

[m60 makes it go]

that's what im asking

[Alpine6And7]

^ it is the tranny ECM and some wires

[TheBigGreen740]

wow, i think i wanna try this mod....hoping for a write up.... ^^^ The Steptronic mod also sounds interesing

[Edwin NL]

This is the write up, btw you need coding to get it to work as you need a LKM from a facelift

[jmiseo2008]

wow! that looks great! nice work!

[TheodoreHendrix]

that is oh so sweet. Thanks for posting

[Boricua720]

This is one sweet mod. Congrats on a job well done.

[TheBigGreen740]

may i ask why does his dash go up to 240mph

[steve0suprem0]

km/h

edit: is it just me, or does this look RIDICULOUSLY easy to do to a facelift car such as my own? i'm talking just those paddles, since none of the other stuff would be necessary. right? just the slipring and the wiring, yeah?

kawa, i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your super-awesome, super-unique mod is about to become super-awesome, pretty-darn-unique.

[ProStreetDriver]

this is the sickest mod evar!!!! i want an e38 soo bad now, thanx lol.

why did you have to change the tumbler???

[steve0suprem0]

let's get serious, here. do you have a part # for those paddles? i'm telling you, this is gonna keep me up at night.

[KAWABMW7]

km/h

edit: is it just me, or does this look RIDICULOUSLY easy to do to a facelift car such as my own? i'm talking just those paddles, since none of the other stuff would be necessary. right? just the slipring and the wiring, yeah?

That's right.

why did you have to change the tumbler???

Facelift has a different one.

let's get serious, here. do you have a part # for those paddles? i'm telling you, this is gonna keep me up at night.

Part number: 001 A 221 267 00 46

[Edwin NL]

Remember only on steptronic cars!