And so it begins.....

[Dan TheMan Welburn]

Today i started the mammoth task of stripping out my interior to replace the carpet and interior wiring loom to HOPEFULLY finally finish the rear electric window retrofit....

I thought i was doing great when i managed to get all the rear wiring out of the boot etc fed into the cabin, then i realised what id let myself in for, centre console is out inc radio cage, all seats are out, now im thinking i may have to remove lower dash panel and glovebox to be able to access fuse board and other bits of wiring that are all part of this one loom,

I was hoping and praying that the interior loom would just end at the driver and passenger kick plates in the footwell,

some pics of progress so far......







Please excuse the state of the carpet etc, as i knew i planned on changing it i sort of mistreated it for a few month inc not hoovering...

got till saturday morning to finish the full job fingers crossed i wont come across any problems

 

[SmoothAssault]

Good effort so far! Keep it up mate, it'll be worth it in the end.

 

[S4_dan]

OH. SH*T! You doing a good (brave?) job there!

I have to remove my front carpet to fully dry out the underlay due to a previous leak.

How difficult is to remove the centre console? Hopefully i won't need to remove the radio and heating control panel?!

Cheers,

Dan

 

[Dan TheMan Welburn]

centre console is fairly simple mate just be thorough, its easy to miss one bolt and it annoy you haha, theres a bolt in either footwell, a couple under rear ashtray, two under the top trim above coin tray and buttons, a couple under gear stick surround, then a couple on the inside the cage pointing towards each door,

you will be able to tell if its ready to come out

cheers chaps, ive already changed dash from grey to black and console etc so alot of it ive done before, and all my trims were out anyway with me trying to source good soul black lower panels, and because local trimmers wont touch my upper panels ive decided to flock them along with the headlining, and ill paint the light surrounds and handles to match

 

[Sandra]

Looking good so far, hope you get it all finished for Saturday. Keep up the good work, and we will all look forward to the pics of your progress. x

 

[Dan TheMan Welburn]

Well the work continued this morning, initially hit a snag as id parked car too close to fence so wouldnt be able to get to fuse board to remove, but i came across that hurdle by reconnecting fuel pump and sticking a bean bag in car to reverse it off the drive.

Carpet is now out, and i can now access all sections of wiring i need too, it seems the wiring running down central part of cabin is connected to main harness from dash so that isnt coming out, just the wiring running down either side of the cabin, also got a pic of my CCM as i need to make 100% sure its rear electric windows compatible or im stuffed before finishing.







so once ive checked ccm part number and functions, ill crack on with removing harness then ill start with the task of untangling my replacement which was stuffed in a box for transport

 

[SmoothAssault]

Watching this closely as I'd really love to get rear electric windows sorted at some point.

Just don't lose you're 8mm socket, or you'll never get it all back together, lol

 

[Dan TheMan Welburn]

My advice is unless you know every inch of these cars I wouldn't bother I rang the audi specialist breaker where I bought the loom and they told me once I'd dropped the steering column there's a bar that the dash mounts too that will come away very easily...... All I can say is my A**E will it come off easy, I couldn't get it to shift at all, sadly it's too much work.

I even contemplated adding the extra wires from one loom to another but the differences between fuse boards and harnesses is massive

So my advice to anyone wanting rear electric windows..... Buy a car that already has them :-(

Now I have the job of reverting mine to looking correct and working correct to oe spec

 

[SmoothAssault]

It shouldn't be too tricky to get the dash out, just remember the passenger airbag mounts as they're bolted to the bulkhead and not very obvious. The airbag mounts use bigger bolts too, not sure exactly but bigger than 8mm.

I got this far with just a Haynes manual for help...

The metal bar must be that piece you can see on the passenger side, there's the same on the drivers side, but my wheel and instrument cluster are in the way in this photo.

You seem so close, there can't be much more work in carrying on and getting it done compared to giving up and putting it all back how it was?

 

[Dan TheMan Welburn]

that metal bar seems to have many things mounted to it, which i think is why i cant seem to get anything past it,

I have a larger problem now though, as i kind of went in gung ho and forgot to do the obvious and disconnect battery, i must of shorted something and now have no power at all,

SmoothAssault i had full dash out and instrument cluster i undid the 3 large nuts holding the bar in place and the to supporting brackets in the middle that run down where stereo etc sit, it would budge a little one side but not the driver side, so im a little puzzled to what is stopping it,

I now have a conundrum to whether to attempt once more to get full loom out, or faultfind and pray that i havnt killed the car completely

 

[S4_dan]

Have you checked all of the fuses? Or have you disconnected something that is prevent power reaching to other parts? A connector?

I wouldn't turn the ignition on without airbags connected to be honest....

 

[Dan TheMan Welburn]

i have the b7 dual stage steering wheel and ive been told that 90% wont go off even in a crash, the dash one is plugged in, dash is back on, all earths are fine, all connections are plugged in, i have found a possible cause, on the positive battery terminal there appears to be a circuit breaker which looking at the pic appears to have broken,

 

[hades-]

I wouldn't turn the ignition on without airbags connected to be honest....[/QUOTE]

why not ?
it will only need a reset and its gona need loads reseting anyway

 

[hades-]

i have the b7 dual stage steering wheel and ive been told that 90% wont go off even in a crash, the dash one is plugged in, dash is back on, all earths are fine, all connections are plugged in, i have found a possible cause, on the positive battery terminal there appears to be a circuit breaker which looking at the pic appears to have broken,

i had this on an old b6 took me 3 days to find it once replaced full power back

 

[Dan TheMan Welburn]

cant seem to find any part reference to this circuit breaker, anyone watching got access to etka?

 

[hades-]

local scrappy i used a call to audi or tps will sort you tho

 

[Dan TheMan Welburn]

it lives, it is definately that fuse/circuit breaker looking thing, will ring motor factors and tps in morning and try to source another, for the time being ive bypassed it to make sure it was only that and it fired right up

i just want to finish the car now, felt quite deflated about the retrofit after earlier, unless i can get in touch with someone who has done a loom swap before then i dont see much point in continuing it..

im wanting a change of car towards end of the year looking at octavia vrs pd tdi and if the pennies will stretch a crdi one

 

[S4_dan]

I wouldn't turn the ignition on without airbags connected to be honest....

why not ?
it will only need a reset and its gona need loads reseting anyway[/QUOTE]

Just from when I was working in a garage, their practice was to disconnect battery before any work and if the airbags were not to connect a battery/or power supply at all. Just my opinion.

 

[S4_dan]

it lives, it is definately that fuse/circuit breaker

Well done! Glad it wasn't terminal.

looking at octavia vrs pd tdi

Make sure it has electric rear windows fitted!! ;-)

 

[Dan TheMan Welburn]

haha i think theyre factory standard on them "thank god!"

hopefully get it all rebuilt tomorrow and ill start sourcing the few bits left to finish it and make it all nice and tidy

 

[Dan TheMan Welburn]

Got the new carpet fitted today after putting all wiring back in right place, put a seat in case i needed to use the car, i do need to collect a new centre console at some point, after doing some work on my mums car which took most of the day, i then needed to pop to tesco, so jumped in car fired it up, drove along, got to a t junction and lost throttle pedal, no matter how hard or how long i pressed it wouldnt rev it just idled,

esp light came on at same time, but after restarting engine it would go, it done this every time i had to come to a complete stop on the way there, but after fuelling up the return journey was ok, anyone have any ideas what it may be? or am i best getting vcds straight on it??

 

[hades-]

could be a lose conection
iv get vcds on it