Keeping the Mrs Happy (project no 3)

[joff-turbo-nova]

I wet vaxed the carpets on Tuesday evening and this resulted in some nice clean carpets...



Next up was the dash board removal so started stripping the dash down...





After removing a myriad of screws things started moving..



And then finally it was free (didn't notice the camera was focused on the door frame rather than the interior - doh!) ..



And removed....





I then tried to locate the heated seats loom, however this does not seem to have been installed on this car. The fuse box has the wiring but there are no plugs for the dash switches nor the connections on the seat plug..



However when I purchased the original leather VXR seats for my Meriva VXP , with the kit came the loom to retro fit the heated seats and plugs - its a bit hacked in places but will make the job a lot easier - just need to get my TIS working again as its died on an old laptop I was using and will not work on Windows 7 ,8 or 10. Just need to see how its all connected together, not sure if there are any relays to pick up within the circuits..

More wiring tomorrow.

Joff

[joff-turbo-nova]

So I retro fitted the heated seats wiring - picked up the correct wires from the back of the fuse box and then routed the wires up to the hazzard switch plug area, and then the heat mat feed wires came down the loom to the centre console and fed out to the plugs under the seats . Earths were picked up from the factory earth points under the centre console and we had this...








However upon trying to get a 12v +ve feed to the seats just wasn't happening - I confirmed that the 12v +ve was going into the back of the dash plug, but nothing was coming out and no little orange LED's were coming on when pressing the heated seats button. Not good.


Keif (from VXRO forum) has kindly supplied me a wiring diagram of the seat pads like so...





And it seems the switches have a set of relays built into them , which won't work without an earth being present.


The hazzard switch has three wires currently attached...





And no brown earth into pin 3 like so...





So next job is to hunt out a wiring plug from a scrapped meriva which has the necessary wiring within the plug. All this for the OEM look ! Doh !


Joff

[millworm]

top work as per usual, been toying with fitting 2000e heat pads to my cosworth seats in my sierra

[Plug]

You've always got something on the go joff!! Your not happy are you unless your tinkering around with a Vauxhall

[joff-turbo-nova]

You've always got something on the go joff!! Your not happy are you unless your tinkering around with a Vauxhall

I've been told that 2016 is to be project free as we have to do lots of work in the garden, cutting down trees and reducing hedge heights.

Joff

[joff-turbo-nova]

Found a random plug on a spare Astra loom which fits the bill....





Removed a pin with a brown earth wire, inserted into pin no 3 on the hazzard plug and hey presto ....








Working buttons with 12v +ve coming out under the seats (well 11.2v as the battery needs a bit of a charge!) ....





Also removed the 12v accessory port that lives in the back of the centre console for the rear passengers and replaced it with a twin USB port which will be far more practical !





Now need to work out which pin illuminates the heated seat buttons when a 12v feed is applied and where to splice into the rest of the loom to find a suitable lights on 12v +ve supply !


Joff

[joff-turbo-nova]

More work after work today ...


Hard wired in the earth wire and the switch illumination backlight wire - I found a feed that goes up to the central display unit on the top of the dash which was handy.








I then installed the spare accessory socket from the centre console in the boot...





And swapped over the airbag ECU so all the dash lights should now be extinguished once all put back together.





Also tried to wire in the adaptor loom for the new headunit, seems we have a square peg in a squarer hole which is a bit annoying - I have contacted the seller on Ebay to see if I can get a replacement.








Finally hardwired in the Transcend dash cam which seems to fit quite nicely behind the rear view mirror...





Joff

[totalnova]

Think I might add a dash can to the wife's car, always seems to have cars "pulling out on her"

[joff-turbo-nova]

Update from today....


Got the carcass of the dashboard installed...








Got to figure out how to fit this lump of wiring behind the headunit!





Started rebuilding the dash and got the central console in , passenger airbag , steering wheel, seats and clocks so checked to see if the Airbag warning light had been extinguished. No error codes on the laptop...













And started up without no warning lights which is good news...





Seats looking nice...





And the seat heating pads do get warm when you hit the switches ...





More dash building tomorrow.


Joff

[joff-turbo-nova]

Onward and upward...


Finished off building up the dash and installed the new Sony Bluetooth headunit (which is the same as the one in my VXP) .....













Started rubbing down the front bumper getting the basic keying done ready for the bodyshop.....





And about an hour and a half later its all done....





The car is getting booked in a to the bodyshop in a couple of weeks , after speaking to Steve Thompson, the chap who runs the bodyshop, they will do the following ...


Respray the front end , bumpers , tailgate and down both sides along with the side skirts and rear spoiler and they should have it about 4-5 days.


More updates when they happen, I need to start some revising for an exam in a couple of weeks !


Joff