Heated Bus Wheel or M-Sport Wheel — Why Not Both?

[Ethanvfoster]

I’ve been thinking about this project for a while now and I’m thinking about taking it on. I have a 530i with the cold weather package and a heated wheel. But like many other E39 enthusiasts, I love the look of the post-facelift m-sport wheel. I recently stumbled upon an incredible deal… and so it begins.

I have the heating element / electronics from my original wheel and I now have the m-sport wheel to drop it into.

Because I couldn’t resist, here it is settling into its new home


I’m interested to know if the general feeling is “that’s too much work for small benefits “ or “that’s worth the effort “


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[BostonJon]

if you live in a cold weather climate, a steering wheel heater really is amazing. I had one in my E61 when I lived in Boston and it really does make a huge difference on cold mornings until the car warms up.

my wife's GX460 has one and I don't think she'd ever buy another car that didnt have one.

[SW530]

Who cares, if you think it's worth it then do it. "Custom" stuff always involves a lot of work and usually for small subtle gains. Good luck with it. Take pictures and share.

[sleuth255]

been thinking about this exact same thing myself actually. Very interested in what you come up with!

[TiesTorN]

been thinking of doing it myself also

[sleuth255]

Where is the heated wheel control button located?

[philly98540]

I still have my heated bus wheel and really like the feature in the cold mornings. It still steers the car just fine, but the sport would be a nice upgrade. I've wondered why BMW did not put this feature on the sport wheel as an option. I've heard that the heating elements are difficult to remove and relocate to another wheel, but never actually tried to do it or saw anyone try it. The sport wheel is smaller so the element)s) would need to be trimmed down and I'm not sure if that effects the electrical side of the function. There is likely some adhesive that needs to be dealt with too. Please give this a go and let us know wheat you discover. You said above that you have the heating element and electronics from your old wheel. Did you already remove them from the bus wheel? Any pics of what that looks like?

[Ethanvfoster]

Where is the heated wheel control button located?

That is still a question to answer. I need to figure out what kind of signal the OEM button sends and I’m hoping I can use the R/T button on the sport steering wheel

Did you already remove them from the bus wheel? Any pics of what that looks like?

I have not done it yet, I will take pictures of this process. I am unsure but hoping that the heating element does not go all the way around the steering wheel. I know at least on my own heated wheel, there are spots that are not as warm as others. Adhesive will probably be my biggest enemy

[sleuth255]

There should be a control module for this in the bus wheel and probably a different clock spring too since Bentleys shows a 10A feed for the heater on fuse F34 (glove compartment) going through it. So it appears that a custom harness will be a part of this project too for ppl like me who aren't starting out with the option installed.

[kallekula]

I would be happy with just seat warmers. Hell, I moved to ca because i hated cold weather but the mornings here are freezing. Maybe i should relocate to the us virgin islands.

[SW530]

I would be happy with just seat warmers. Hell, I moved to ca because i hated cold weather but the mornings here are freezing. Maybe i should relocate to the us virgin islands.

The last time I moved to Thailand I found a place in Bangkok that was part of a resort complex. My place was on the 22nd floor and I had large balconies on three sides of the building. When I first got there I tried opening all the windows for a cross breeze but the weather up that high was different than on the ground, mozzies couldn't fly that high which was a great benefit and it was 5-6f cooler.. but still plenty warm. A 40mph cross breeze convinced me not to do that again.

After 35 hours of traveling I remember taking a shower and then standing out on the balcony to air dry without a stitch of clothing and thinking what a wonderful place to live this was going to be. I bought some towels eventually, mostly for when guests were over, but air drying was the preferred way to dry off. I'd stand out there overlooking the tennis courts and pools and further in the distance was the lights of downtown.. And now.. I just took the dogs out to do their biz for the night and it's not even cold.. but my what a difference..

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[ChrisMelnyk]

I thought about this too before I recovered my e46 M3 SMG wheel to put onto the 530i.

I deemed it too much work.

I am not 100% sure the type of heating element on the e39, but on the e70, it is very thin copper wire that is glued/embedded into the foam backing under the leather. It can be very challenging separating it from the leather without screwing it up.

Even if you do salvage that heating element, trying to rework it to a 3 spoke from a 4 spoke would also be difficult.

It's probably easier to figure out what type of heating element they used and buy some to use.

You can then salvage the little heating module and sensor from a heated wheel.

Note:

Your tension on the new leather must be perfect. If it's too tight, the heating element will show through.

You may want to look into carbon tape instead or wire.

https://www.instructables.com/Carbon...teering-Wheel/

[sleuth255]

Yeah, agree. The heating element can't be re-used.

[Ethanvfoster]

Thank you everyone for your useful insight, great ideas!

Today I dove into the project


Controls -
There are 3 main tasks here.
1. Figure out what the control board needs.
2. Figure out what signal the button sends.
3. Figure out how to emulate that with the “R/T” button.

1. The control board


The 2 wire connector plugs into switched 12volt from the clock spring. The + wire goes straight to the board and the ground wire splits between the board and the heating element itself.
The 3 wire connector plugs into the back of the switch board near the heated seat button. I disassembled the switch board and it doesn’t seem that it’s as simple as I was hoping. I have read that the button signals are communicated by different voltages on different wires but this is still something to confirm.
The 4 wire connector plugs into the heating element. The ground comes from chassis ground and the + wire from the board. The other 2 wires are for the heating diode, to limit the heat I assume.

Questions I’m left with : what is the board looking for over the 3 wire connector and why does there need to be 3 wires?

Here are some pictures of the board


Mirrored for ease of tracing the circuit


And it seems mine is broken

Everything has always worked so I suppose I will proceed and hopefully not find out what that middle pin does


The heating element -
The tasks are as follows
1. Remove heating element (not so easy)
1.5. Clean heating element ??
2. Test heating element
3. Put element on new steering wheel

1. Removing the heating element is no easy task. Cutting the leather off is easy enough, it is safe to cut around the main seam of the leather. Once all stitching is cut, my recommendation would be to VERY CAREFULLY cut between the pieces of leather on the spoke where the wire comes out.

Once cut, pull back the leather on the back of the spoke and fish the wires out. I had to make a small cut to get the connector out.

Now carefully and slowly pull back the leather and pull the wires out of their groove. They will need to go around the wheel to come out. Once the wires are out, the heating element should stick to the leather and you can peel it off the wheel like you’d expect.



Now you will be left with leather and the heating element glued together



It is a painful process to remove this, but it is only 2 strips of glue on either side of the element. It took me about 20 minutes and I could have been much more careful. Here’s what I am left with





There are quite a few spots with damage like the last picture but it seems to me that it will work still. I’d like to clean this (if anyone has recommendations on what to use, it would be appreciated) and test it before putting it into the new one


So this is where I stand, this seems very possible to me!


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[philly98540]

Some good progress there. Looks like an old snakeskin LOL. It looks like that missing center land on the chip is on purpose. It must not be needed. On the heating element, do you think the power travels across the short dimension of the element? If so, then that broken conductor on the side may prevent heat up in those areas. You think thats fixable? I'm not sure though looking at your pics. Maybe a heat gun would soften the glue up for easier removal and less damage? Is there temp sensor on the element? Or maybe the controller measures resistance to control the heat? Self regulating?

Maybe connect things up and see if the heat still works good.

[ChrisMelnyk]

Very impressive. These are likely the only reference pictures on this style heating element on the internet. The e70 does use a completely different type. It basically uses one continuous wire that's thicker with lots of switchbacks. This looks like it should work well. I'm not sure what your going to use as your new cover, but just be aware that most aftermarket ones are made to go overtop of the old one, not replace it. I wanted to replace mine, so I made it from scratch. It's way too much work. I would not advise that.

Nevertheless, here's a writeup I did on it:

https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...lstery-Project

[philly98540]

Redline says that make a cover that replaces the original cover. I’ve not confirmed that though. All the others online go over top of the old. Maybe the old cover could stay on the sport wheel and then add the new over the top type cover with the heating element bonded to it? Or remove the sport wrap and put the heating element on and wrap something around to mimic the original diameter and then add an over the top type cover?

[Ethanvfoster]

I wanted to replace mine, so I made it from scratch. It's way too much work. I would not advise that.

Nevertheless, here's a writeup I did on it:

https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...lstery-Project

Your write up is great! I thought about doing it from scratch so I’m glad you warned me. I don’t think I have the skill you have… (Yet!)

I am thinking that putting some of that foam you used or maybe 2 layers will be enough to increase the size for the aftermarket leather. I could also put the heating element between the leather and the foam to help protect it during installation.

Redline says that make a cover that replaces the original cover. I’ve not confirmed that though. All the others online go over top of the old.

Redline goods is incredible! I may be buying a lot of leather products from them . For this project though, I think I’ll go the cheap route in case I have to re-do it. (College life)

Thanks for the tip!!

[Ethanvfoster]

More testing

Here was my setup - only slightly sketchy



Heating element works just fine, like it did before.

The 3 pin connector needs to be deciphered in order to fake the same signal. Here is the info I’ve collected so far.

Pin # 1-2-3 starting from the keyed side of the connector

Voltage between pins without button pressed
1 and 3 ~ 8.4 v
1 and 2 ~ 1.2 v
2 and 3 ~ 0 v

Voltage between Pins with button pressed
1 and 3 ~ 8.4 v
1 and 2 ~ - 1.2 v
2 and 3 ~ 9.6 v

Currently this means nothing to me, maybe someone smarter than me can help figure out what to do with this info


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[a777fan]

Found these a while back when I was looking into something similar. Its the functional description and wiring diagram. Hope it helps.





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[Ethanvfoster]

Episode 3

Due to being a college student, I have no time. Currently, it’s spring break, SO, I pulled the trigger on re-wrapping the steering wheel. I have yet to put in the time and effort necessary to make the electronics work, but I figured that putting the heating element in couldn’t hurt. Electronics will be phase 2.

I removed the leather from the wheel and as said before, there is a somewhat nasty foam underneath. It’s a pain to remove but with some patience it comes off (in many, many pieces).

I bought some felt fabric to replace this. The felt ended up working decently well, but I am certain there are better materials. The reason I used it was simply because I couldn’t find anything better in the stores I went to. I’m sure some online research would pay off.

However, with some careful, triangular shaped cuts in the felt, I think it would work perfectly.


Step two of the process was getting an even layer of felt taped on to the wheel. Easy enough but takes some time.


Then, I fit the heating element over the felt. It fit nicely once I cut groves in the foam for the heat sensor.


Next, stretch the “leather” over the heating element being careful not to pull on the element the wrong way. This step took a lot of focus, so there are no pictures (oops)

Stitching the leather couldn’t be more straight forward, just back and forth from loop to loop (more or less)

I also vinyl wrapped the lower trim with flat black vinyl, it matches almost perfectly.



While this is far from perfect, it turned out great considering my budget (currently at $80 all in) and the fact that I don’t know what I’m doing.

Here it is in the car


Next episode we will tackle the electronics.
The easy answer would be a small Arduino or raspberry pi, but I’m attempting something a little more creative. Any suggestions/ideas would be appreciated!


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[sleuth255]

Nice! I love seeing creations from people who reject the the notion of "it can't be done"! Heater control button doesn't exist on the sport wheel so it makes sense that the switch itself needs to be somewhere else. The middle switch panel above the cupholders makes sense; there's a lot of button variations for that panel so you may be able to find one that has a button you can co-opt. Since seat heaters are there already, the location would make sense. Does the wheel electronics include temp cycling control or is the cycling switch in the wheel heater itself the control point (looks like it). If so, you can remove electronics from the wheel completely and co-opt the 10A circuit at X1492.

Arduino would be a good platform here; you could easily install a switching shield to power a relay that would switch 10A to X1492. Code would be trivial.

[Ethanvfoster]

That’s a great idea for the switch location! I bet I could get one with the small green LED like the heated seats and control that with the Arduino too.

The heating part of the electronics comes from the old wheel, there is a separate chip that controls everything related to that, including under and over voltage protection and switching it off once it reaches a certain temp. The only thing to do is to simulate the button press from the Arduino (I posted the voltages from the pins a couple posts ago)

[sleuth255]

I'm thinking that the circuitry in the steering wheel needs to be dumbed down: If X01031 gets 12V then it is switched on and its sole purpose is to power the heater and regulate temp. That way you can control everything by switching the single feed at X1492 that's already set up to pass up to 10A through the clock spring. Now your controller can be anywhere under the dash, even directly wired to the activation switch if needed.

[ChrisMelnyk]

Looking good.

You may want to try water + rubber alcohol and a heat gun to shrink the leather that has bunched up. Something like this would work:
https://bootspy.com/how-to-shrink-leather-boots/

Also, what about putting the switch in the steering wheel shroud/cover like later models have?
It you have a junkyard nearby, you can probably grab the switch and clipped connector pretty cheap.

Like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmv4XlVTdCA

I'm not sure how much clearance you'll have or need, but it's a thought.