jim010

Not sure if this will help anyone here, but thought I'd post it anyways, I did this today for a different car, (and posted this on The Mustang Source), using a left over clockspring I had for a 996, so related, I guess.

I needed 3 more wires to go to my steering wheel, but the problem was all the pins in the connector were used for other things, so I needed to add more wires somehow.

The clockspring is a pretty simple device - its just a strip of wire ribbon. So I decided to add in another wire ribbon. That is the easy part, but then I would need to somehow have the wires enter and exit the clockspring, and I can't use the existing plugs, so I would have to add my own for this, and involves drilling an exit holes, but no problem, really.

I bought an extra used clockspring, in case I messed it up.

Then I would need two 4 pin connectors, soldering iron, solder and flux.

So first, dissasembling the clockspring. Pretty easy. Just held together with tabs.

Then I had a wire ribbon with 4 wires in it, so I cut it to around the same length as the old one, but longer. Can trim later.

On one end, I drilled holes into each exposed copper strip for the wire (this wire will go to the new connector that needs to be added) to go through. Then I sanded off the plastic sheath to expose the bare copper. Need metal exposed for thee solder.

jim010

Solder the 3 wires (could have done 4, but I needed only 3). The wire goes through the hole I drilled and then soldered on the back. Trim off the excess ribbon.

jim010

Now fold the ribbon to follow the old ribbon, and route the wires out of the clockspring. For the steering column side, I had to drill a hole to allow the wires to exit, as there was no other place for them to go. Then covered the hole all up with hot glue.

jim010

Now for the steering wheel side. Coil the ribbon up with the old one, and leave a little bit extra. Drill your holes and sand off the plastic sheath like before. Then solder them. Fold the ribbon to follow the old one. For the steering wheel exit, I had my wires follow the path of the airbag wires, so no extra hole here.

jim010

Put it back together. And that's it. I now have 3 extra wires I can use.