benzmodz

By popular demand, here is a record of my effort in restoring a Japanese w220 2002 model S500L to Australian, UK, SG ..... specification.

As required the modification requires upgrades in COMAND, Phone, CD, TV and Voice control wiring. The only thing that doesnt change at all is the BOSE wiring. This particular car is quite amazing as it has virtualy everything possible including a rear armrest phone and adjustable rear seats.

Here is a Japan specification trunk with the cover removed. You see the TV, Teleaid, Navigation drive and 10 stacker CD player with BOSE right down the bottom.



Here is the reason why the head units will not swap directly. The bottom half of the Japan unit is missing since it is in the trunk.



The UK / Euro unit is completely self contained. So you can see that now the first problem is half of the head unit wiring is in the trunk



This is the set of cables from the trunk for the old equipment.



To install the replacement cables my suggestion is that you make some room inside the car and open up the cabling trays to allow for the new wiring to be installed and the old wiring to be removed.





Trace the power lines back to the fuse box for anything that is no longer needed.



After removing all of the wires no longer needed and tracing individual wires that seem to go nowhere, install the new wires fresh from the factory.

Installed wiring (all same specification as same year RHD car).
* Optical cable
* Navigation
* Voice control
* CD changer
* Phone
* TV





Some wires are specific for the rear parcel shelf as they relate to connections for phone, gps and TV and need to cross over to the other side of the car for connections to be made



The rear trunk area now ready for the replacement equipment. Notice the coloured tape markers for location matching. This is how the cables are located so that they are not in the wrong position. The car has about 30 or so colour-coded junction markers.



The trunk is now in the new specification with the correct CD stacker and trunk lining. The interior is back in one piece. Due to some other unrelated work the centre console will be done later and some update photos included.



It takes 1.5 days with 2 guys working on the car. The labour was in fact the lowest component of the job. The wiring and control modules were somewhat more.

The final configuration is to have Bluetooth UHI in operation.

All parts from MBENZNL (steve@mbenznl.com)

benzmodz

Japanese trunk


Here is a Japan specification trunk with the cover removed. You see the TV, Teleaid, Navigation drive and 10 stacker CD player with BOSE right down the bottom.



Headunit in detail






Resolving the speed signal component (two wires to front control unit).


Speed wires in place


The right hand side deals with connections for the GPS and GSM signals. Because the car had teleaid which is not needed now there is a spare phone connection for the glass mounted antennas which means that the bumper mounted system no longer needs to be activated but can easily be done if necessary.



Antenna junction point for GSM and GPS.


The old phone was in the rear armrest. The front armrest will be refitted with a phone system (UHI) and Bluetooth will be possible with the correct Nokia or Siemens phone.



The armrest is loaded with phone and TV cabling as per factory spec. When the service work to be done is completed I will show the working headunit and phone system in place.

sprink49

Jesus Christ!!! Holy Crap!!! You are serious...are you not? Great job! What do you do in your spare time ? I wonder how many people on the globe have gone this deep into a W220?

Looking forward to the results.

benzmodz

Whenever an S-class has a terminal error they do the same thing and change the ENTIRE floor wiring. In Australia we have no lemon laws on new cars so it is not uncommon to see an S-class getting warranty work done in this manner.

I would say that most workshops around the world do this kind of work. Just ask the head technician.

In my spare time I sleep.

WishforE55

awesome job benzmodz...

how did you bring the car into Aus - private import?

MBenzNL

looks like a fun job (seriously)

greetingz,

macgyber

Very complicated and time taking but maybe interesting job for you.
Nice work...

benzmodz

We buy parts from MBENZNL and install them for clients. No idea on the import. I think it comes from Brisbane or NZ.

benzmodz

I met a guy who did the same job using black wires with twisted ends and electrical tape. He seemed to find a solution after several weeks of trying different combinations of wires to twist together. He even went to the trouble of running a new GPS cable on the outside of the car.

I think he had more fun than anyone !

I tested the bluetooth and GPS today. Everything works normally. Photos when I wake up (I promise ClayJ).

We are going to do it all over again. There is a CL500 in the garage waiting for the same conversion and the client wants all of the options installed, not just wired.

The SRS coding in the airbag and cluster was interesting.

benzmodz

The old phone was in the rear armrest. The front armrest will be refitted with a phone system (UHI) and Bluetooth will be possible with the correct Nokia or Siemens phone.



The armrest is loaded with phone and TV cabling as per factory spec.

Phone system in place and operational with COMAND. Bluetooth and UHI in place even though the car is pre-UHI build.




FM radio working correctly.


GPS and all other functions operating normally. SRS coding removed for Teleaid.