jsheiry

This steering wheel upgrade idea is not new and in fact many before me have done this to their 968's. For me I had heard about it and read a few posts to give me confidence that it could be done especially Paul Waterloo's post, OD's posts, rumors of Larts installations. I thought I would update this a little with photos and by wiring in the tiptronic shift buttons to the shifter as well for my wifes car. I bought this steering wheel years ago for her car but waited until I was changing out her tired looking dash for a new one. Well I have had the dash now for a little over a year and the steering wheel for years so finally "get after it". Here are a few photos of the process. YMMV

1 The steering wheel hub is too thick for the 968 nut and washer to get much bite so you must "machine" down a bit to get good thread bite. Do not worry this hub is plenty thick and the minor amount of aluminum that needs to be removed should not affect the strength needed. I bought a forstner wood bit which worked amazingly well on the soft aluminum and fit perfectly in the hub hole.


Photo of steering wheel before machining down, you can see the minimal bite.




Photo of forstner bit from HomeDepot this is 1 3/8"



Proper amount of bite after machining down

2 Remove existing clock spring 2 screws, wires pull up and can be disconnected. The orange connection is the airbag, the black one is the horn. You must use the 996/Boxster clockspring as its designed for the steering wheel. Luckily the spacing on the 2 screws that mount the clockspring are identical.



Old clockspring on left, new one on the right. New one does not fit in the plastic trim/surround so it needs to be milled slightly.



Made a little jig (have another one to do)



Large hole saw. 3 3/4"

3. Before mounting new clockspring, the turn signal stalk/wiper stalk needs to be shifted down slightly...this is held by clamp thats secured underneath. 8mm bolt need to get 1/4" drive socket & extension. Its hidden by the black plastic dash trims that come together under the column. Once you find loosen this and you will see the entire assembly can move up or down a 1/2" or so on the column. Push down as far as it will go. I left this bolt loose until final assembly so that I could adjust up/down

4 On a 6 speed car your nearly finished as you would plug in the orange connector in the same place the old orange connector plugged for airbag. On the tiptronic, things just got started for me testing the wiring from the buttons on steering wheel through the clockspring. I would now need to make an approximate 24" jumper from the clockspring connections over to the tiptronic shifter wiring harness. This was simpler than it sounds and after testing with meter and identifying wire colors on both sides. There are 3 plugs on the new tip clockspring...Orange is the airbag, Red is the horn, Blue is tip up and tip down(Existing tip harness even same colors as blue plug. Br/red tip down br/ylw tip up) Shift up and shift down referenced to ground.


Plugs on new clockspring

Tip shifter harness

4 Installed jumper from new clockspring over to existing shifter wiring.

5 Trim rubber surround with razor blade as there is less space now.

6. Bolt down steering wheel, install airbag and tighten bolt under column on entire stalk assembly. Put screws back in plastic trims underneath that helped to expose the stalk clamp bolt. Reset my airbag light with the Durametric software. You can avoid this by following the removal of battery leads for a few hours before starting the project.



Installed 3 spoke airbag wheel with working tiptronic buttons. Works nicely. The car still must be shifted into the manual gate mode and then and only then do the buttons on the steering wheel become active.

chudson

John, why is the engine temperature gauge pegged all the way to hot??

Cliff

jsheiry

Because this car will not let me ever finish! The temp guage has been acting up in the last year, I was hopeful when removing dash, sending cluster out for new odometer gears to Cory Shephard of Specialty Guage that this problem would get solved in hopes that it was a poor connection or something in that flat plug etc.... Well after Cory did his repair of the odometer, polishing of the light tunnels etc... we still have same problem. John gets to remove cluster and change that one guage pod and see if that solves. This car has 170K miles and keeps me busy as its nearly daily driven in the non winter months. To add insult to injury...if my wife slaps the dash just right the guage returns to its proper location, I however refuse to beat on the nice newly installed dash as I hardly have her touch.

Paul Waterloo

Very nice! When I changed the wheels on both my 996 and my 951, I don't know if it was just me, but the steering felt slightly lighter and more responsive.

H.F.B.

Looks great! Could you list the part numbers for the steering wheel etc. please.
Thanks!

cgfen

Excellent DIY post.
Thank you.

jsheiry

This steering wheel/airbag/clock spring is from a late 993 or 996 or 986 Boxster with Tiptronic transmission

The steering wheel (in Black) 99634780464 will also need airbag Usually you can find used steering wheel and airbag from $400-700 depending on condition and color etc...
The clock spring for tiptronic is 99665221302 or 99665221304

sm

@jsheiry Could you bore out a steering trim surround for me? I’ll pay you of course.

Also, is there a “cover” for that triangle airbag that can be removed? I want to customize it a bit with leather etc.

jsheiry

Yes, you can remove the cover on the airbag....ymmv. I bought a terd brown steering wheel and airbag knowing it was going to get recovered to match my Midnight Blue dash. I sent the steering wheel and airbag cover to Joaquin Samper down in S Florida and he recovered one beautifully for me to match my 6 speed cabs interior.

Have a few of those black trim pieces and happy to drill one and send.

LTDzak

Nice work John. The airbag on the 968 is "single speed", is the 996 airbag also single speed? Most cars starting in the early 90s moved to two speed airbags.

jsheiry

Thanks, Im not sure at all on the answer to the airbag single or two. I would consider the 968 a "first gen" and the 996 a "second gen" airbag but other than that I do not know the answer.

Paul Waterloo

I believe both airbags are single stage air bags. If it's two stage, it normally has an extra wire if I recall.

LTDzak

Paul you are correct, a dual stage airbag would have another wire.

H.F.B.

Now, a nice Tiptronic steering wheel acquired. Hope to get it in my 968 soon.
I'll keep you updated.


Porsche 996 Steering Wheel for a Porsche 968 Tiptronic

dlearl476

Dang John, it must be steering wheel week! I read those posts like night looking for info on swapping my wheel out. I’m not going three-spoke, but I just bought the blue one out of your parts car from Jay. If it looks funny with the Classic Grey airbag, I’ll just recover it or dye it. Contact info for Joaquin just in case? I think I’m going to get my original wheel recovered as well.