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Happy to announce that I've been selected to join the Diode Dynamics Ambassador's Program!
The fit was natural as I've been using both their SSC2 Sport's in White/Red Flood lights for my Reverse/Rear Fog and their SSC2 Pro's in Yellow/Yellow Fog Lights for my front fogs for about a year now. They've been great and are a significant improvement over the OE setup.
I fully documented my entire design/build process for retrofitting the Diode Dynamics Elite Series Type F2 Fog Lights to the W463.
Quick 90 second Instagram Reel about the process:
I'll have a longer-form video on Youtube after getting some night time driving shots to highlight the difference while in motion.
Some pictures of the results:
Type F2 lights assembled into the retrofit brackets. No hardware visible front the front which makes them look really OEM.
Took a few tries to get the brackets and the light mounting parts dialed in.
Removing the SSC2 Pro's that have worked great for the past year. Quite a difference in look, although the performance of the 2 is supposed to be pretty similar.
Closeup of how the Elite Series F2 lights fit in the OEM front fog light position with the OE surround (now sadly discontinued also)
Front view with both lights installed. They look OEM for the most part - very similar to the OEM lights (with 10x the light output)
I found a pretty cool bull internal reflection when looking at a specific angle. This is the amber backlight only - a pretty cool look. They are not as bright as the backlights on the SSC2 Pro's but do provide a cool accent for DRLs.
Light output is a lot sharper/thinner than the SSC2 Pro's close up, but while driving it is pretty close - major improvement for light output, especially near-field lighting up everything within 50ft. I do need to adjust the light angles a little bit as the right side is aimed a little bit higher (somehow)
If anyone is interested in retrofitting these or any of the other DD products I've designed things for, feel free to reach out here or send an email to shiann.builds@gmail.com. Happy to discuss anything G related!
Thanks for the tip! I saw the cable holder on the latch side but didn't see a tension adjustment - will have to take it all apart and look closer. Good chance the cable came loose on the latch side at some point and someone (maybe me) just tried to adjust the cable tension to fix it.
I am dreading taking apart the center console to get to the TC Module. I hope that's not the case as mine is a 2005 and the early issues should have been fixed, but alas old MB electronics aren't the best. I've just been living with the "TC in Neutral" error lately but now that the weather is warmer, I don't really have an excuse to not try and fix it.
First, really nice fog lamps. I plan to refresh mine in the future so I will have to ping you when I get to it. Much lower down on my TODO list right now, though!
Back to your door latch. Here is a marked up version of the door with the card on. Hope you don’t mind that I was too lazy to not pull the card off without having a real need to do so. 😉
#3 is the holder that you are familiar with - the bit that attaches to the interior latch pull.
#1 is the other end of the cable holder. It is on the interior side of the door skin, so you will have to reach in and feel for it. When you do, it is really rather obvious.
Anyone coming to this thread later - it is the two cable hold ends that creates the tension on the cable pull. It makes the cable length itself rather irrelevant.
#2 is the tension adjustment point. You may see a threaded section sticking out. If you do not, then the tension is set to as loose as possible. To increase the tension you unscrew the tensioner. Why this happens is because unscrewing the tensioner makes the rubber bit covering the cable longer, which will make the interior door latch pull feel firmer. It makes more sense when actually fiddling with it.
Tip: I have learned that screwing the tensioner all the way in makes reattaching the pull cable to the holder/handle easier, then I simply unscrew it afterwards to make the pull feel firmer.
Haven't reported in a while, but of course that doesn't meen things haven't been moving along. ~2k miles since April, so time to catch up on the past few months.
I dug out the front turn signal and rear tail light guards and cleaned them up using goo-gone and a pressure washer. I had plasti-dipped these in black back in 2020 and had them on the G for a year or 2, then in storage since. I'll be putting these up for sale soon as I don't imagine putting them back on.
Looking back, I would not plastidip these (or anything for that matter) since it's so annoying to remove.
I also sold the extra rear 2/3 seat that I bought from a pre-MBSUA G. It's been sitting around in my garage, then office for the better part of 3 years now and I won't use it for my previously planned projects. Sold to a cool LR restoration expert out in the hamptons who tinkers with G's from time to time. Good to see this go to a good home finally. If anyone was ever wondering, yes, you can fit a 2/3 seat in the back cargo area between the wheel wells. If you can find a way to fix it securly to the flor, you can probably mount it to the floor and have a 3rd row, although you'd have to figure out seatbelts and such.
During normal G tinkering, I decided to replace the stripped out screws that held in the rear cargo door striker with new allen head flat stainless steel hardware. Flat heat M14 is the correct size. Looks much better and significantly easier to get these night and tight. I'll be doing the same for all the door strikers when they need adjusting.
The G has gotten more washes this past spring/summer than it has probably ever gotten. Between all the rain and pollen, it definitely needs a lot of cleaning since it is still an 'ouside car' (for now). Really liking the foam cannon and pressure washer setup that I wall mounted with a karcher cube and wall mounted pressure washer hose reel - so easy to use with no setup time. Less excuses to not wash.
I've been collecting some detailign supplies - new backing plates, heavier cutting pads, and busted out the old porter cable 7424XP. The thing worked well, but definitely showing its age. I'll pick up a Harbor Freight Hercules Direct Drive polisher when I have a window of time to polish the entire G and ceramic coat it.
Also finally got around to replacing the instrument cluster LCD panel. I picked it up off Amazon exactly 1 year ago and finally got to install it.
Total install time was about 15 minutes, most of which was getting a good view on how the ribbon cable connector worked. New screen is so much better and can be seen in daylight and during hotter temperatures. The only downside, as others have stated, is that you can't see the screen with polarized sunglasses. Not sure if there is a film you can put over the screen to fix this, but it is a minor annoyance as all of my sunglasses are polarized.
Also had my first encounter with water corrosion on a wire harness that I made. This was the harness I made for my Diode Dynamics light pods used in the reverse and rear fog positions. I thought that it would be enough that the connections were soldered and covered with shrink tubing. I started getting an error on the dash for my reverse lights, and found that they weren't lighting correctly. Inspected the lights and they worked perfectly. Went through the wiring harness and found an intermittent connection on the power side. Dug deper and found massive amounts of corrosion, enough to break the wire, and also enough to cause isseus on ~6in of wire. I cut out the whole section and replaced it, using solder-seal connectors this time.
Got everything fixed up and the reverse lights work perfectly now again. Significant improvement over the OE reverse candle.
Removed the center trim pieces to get a better look under the cosmetic panel. I eventually plan to 3D scan this panel and 3D print a replacement with an actual usable cup holder in place of the cubby hole, but that is a project for another day.
The main reason I removed all of the center console stuff was to fix the shift boot mounting pins. Mine were completely broken when I got the G back in 2020 so I've been constantly adjusting it every time I use the handbrake (which is all the time now since my Transfer Case still can't be calibrated). I'm sure that I could make new ball/pin mounts, but I just decided to bolt the shift boot frame to the outer trim piece. It does make installing it very difficult, but I don't envision removing this piece in the future unless I remove the entire console. Works like a charm!
What I'm thinking of when redesigning the center cosmetic trim panel with a large cup holder to hold things like the oversized water jugs most people use today. Just want to clean up how things are kept in the G and have dedicated places for all the things we use normally. Also want to get rid of the clip on cup holder afterthought that MB thought was actually a good idea.
In the other world of mounting things in permanent locations - I relocated my phone charger mount to the dash next ot the instrument cluster. Traced the dash contour with an profile finder and 3D printed a quick design to mount my (now ancient) iOttie iTap2. The placement is ok overall, but I need to find a lower profile wireless charger as I don't like how far away from the dash my phone sits. I could probably recess the whoel thing ~1in but will have to completely custom model the back part of the iTap2 and resolder the USB connector to be right angle. Possible, but a lot of custom work that may just all be obsolete soon. I think I'll just get a magsafe mount and adapt it to my bracket. Then run a magsafe to android case since I'm on team Android.
In the same toptic, I added a USB for charging in the glove box for the wife as we plan to take several multi-hour roadtrips this summer.
Which brings me to this monstrosity. Started with a simple idea to use a 12V->5V step-down converter that I had from another project, along with the terminal distribution blocks. Ordered some USB pigtails and came up with this web of wires that is mounted below the glove box. I have tons of USB powered things, so needed a lot of plugs. Then of course, I checked amazon and find they sell these things for $24 with fast charging and built in fuses. Great. I'll replace the crazy thing if I have any problems with it in the coming months.
So here is the current setup and all the things that need USB power:
1. Cell phone wireless charger mount
2. Android Navigation Screen
3. TPMS receiver
4. GPS tracker
5. Glovebox USB power
6. Rearview Dashcam/Screen
Also ended up breaking the rear camera wire that is mounted under my 3rd brake light. Too much flexing over time from poor mounting. Had to remove all of the rear door panels, so took the time to cover the plastic panels and flat metal sections of the rear door with butyl sound damping material. Haven't noticed yet if it has helped, but it definitely can't hurt. Tried repairing the cable but found it was broken in several places, causing an intermittent camera feed signal - so buttoned it all back up and ordered a new cable to be installed tomorrow.
These side and top plastic trim pieces rattle and squeak pretty badly, so adding some butyl and fabric tape on the mounting areas really tightens things up.
Really good idea on the dynamat @shiann When I had the driver's door apart to replace the lock, the thing that struck me was how little sound deadening material there was in there. I made a mental note to go through and pad up all the insides of all doors at some point in the future.
Really good idea on the dynamat @shiann When I had the driver's door apart to replace the lock, the thing that struck me was how little sound deadening material there was in there. I made a mental note to go through and pad up all the insides of all doors at some point in the future.
Agreed. I did the same when I went through all 4 other doors for my speaker upgrades. Took off the old (and crumbling) sound deadening in there and stuck on 2 layers of butyl and 1 layer of closed cell foam. I think I ended up covering ~75% of the inner door skin as some is impossible to reach without a lot more patience than I have. I *think* this had a pretty good noise-isolation factor for road noises bleeding through the doors, but it may just be confirmation bias due to the amount of work it took. I didn't cover the outer skin though, but may in the future.
The next major step here is to strip out the headliner and interior panels and add the same sound deadening treatment to the entire roof and cargo area, which I can hopefully get done this summer.
Just completed a trip to southerm MA and back for the weekend and it all went off without any issues.
Before leaving, my rear view mirror camera that I installed 3.5 years ago started giving me trouble. The rear camera started cutting out randomly, so i bought a replacement cable, and replacement camera. Both seemed to work, but the same problem came back a day later. Mostly when the temperature was really hot. So I purchased a Wolfbox 840s that was on sale on Amazon for just over $100.
No new fancy features here, pretty much exactly the same specs as the old Vantop H610 that I was replacing, with the exception of 4k front resolution. Didn't take any pictures of the install as I mounted everything an hour before we left, but install was painless and the video quality front and rear is much better than the previous. The only thing I'll have to modify is 3D printing a better mount for the rear camera mounted below the 3rd brake light - it wobbles too much.
I also replaced my USB monster with one built specifically for this. This model from Amazon I linked above, is a 9A model, so more power and smarter distribution controls also. I wired an old 12V socket to the plug I added so to not modify the USB power brick. All tucks away nicely under the glove box.
Made the obligatory stop at FCPEuro to drop off ~$350 worth of warranty returns.
Also got lucky and was able to snag a set of used G63 shocks off FB Marketplace from someone who worked at a dealership close to FCPEuro. They look like they're in pretty good condition for the claimed 90k miles on them, and they pressurize nicely. Rubber bushings and washers are also all intact and feel good. Picked them up for $120 so pretty happy to get them.
The purpose of getting these is to remove the Fox 2.0's from my G and rebuild them with all of the parts I purchased so long ago. Then the plan is probably to sell the Fox's as they're valved for a Jeep JK and they are backwards (Jeep JK rears on G front, and vice versa) to the Jeep crowd, or revalve them to the G specifications (if I can get the shims and correct order from Fox) and keep them. This is what Eurowise did to keep selling G kits back during 2020 when Fox discontinued the G-specific kits temporarily. I honeslty wish I had a better experience to talk about with the Fox 2.0 adjustables, but mine has been pretty bad all around from installation (you can read all about it earlier in this thread) to now where 3/4 of them are leaking badly and you can tell that they are doing very little for body control. The ride is incredibly bouncy, lots of weird rattles and chattering, even being set at setting 4/8 from soft.
In the long run, when I finally do install my +40mm lift springs from JackwagonOverlanding, I'll probably pick up a set of Koni Raid shocks to keep things simple.
Also picked one of these beasts up in anticipation for the shock swap - Dont want any chance of seized bolts causing issues. DCF900 with gobs of power. (I'm deep in the Yellow camp with my construction tools by a toss of a coin many moons ago, so no red M18 tools for me)
And at one part of our destination. Private beach time out in Southern MA. The G looked great out there. Wish I had grabbed a picture of the whole area blanketed by fog with a faint glimps of the G roofline, but was too busy trying not to suck at golf.
Ironically, after getting back from our 600 mile roadtrip, my wife was driving today and the accelerator pedal broke again. AGAIN!. 3rd time this has happened now. Not sure if it's specifically the MTC branded ones I have been buying from Amazon, but these things just don't last and the design is terrible. First one broke after I had the G for 1.5 years. Second one broke after 2.5 years. Third one has lasted just about 1 year.
So I ordered an electronic pedal replacement. The R170 model has the integrated kick-down switch, so no custom hacking required to fit the OE switch. All that I'll have to do is figure out how to mount it so it's easy to install. Others have installed the R230 model pedal, which also works fine but you hae to retrofit the kick-down switch. Also, this set came with the brake pedal cover, so they'll be matching. I didn't wan to have to spend another $40 on a brake pedal cover. I did find the R230 varient not too far way in NJ for sale on Ebay also, but shipping time (somehow) would take roughly the same amount of time, so now I wait.
Should get here in a few days. I'll take a look what kind of bracket I'll need to make. If it seems complex enough I'll 3D scan the pedal box and the pedal and design a 3D printed piece.
@shiann when you design and print a camera housing, look into the very latest 2025 G's design. They have the camera mounted by the license plate and I think that would be a good place for a camera housing, as long as camera has good field of view overall.
@shiann when you design and print a camera housing, look into the very latest 2025 G's design. They have the camera mounted by the license plate and I think that would be a good place for a camera housing, as long as camera has good field of view overall.
Absolutely will.
My second screen (Nav+info screen) has a back-up camera function that I plan to mount in the lower area by the license plate. I'll also pick up a OE replacement camera + camera housing as I do want to move my rear view camera outside the door. I now have the same wolfbox rear camera that you purchased a little while ago, so can get moving on the project now!
Accelerator pedal broke again in the same way. This is the MTC 3231/126-300-05-04 replacment pedeal I purchased on Amazon for ~$12. Low cost but annoying overall as it is very difficult ot drive with it broken.
I did receive the R170 pedal and it looks good. Will have to do some work on how to mount it as I don't want to drill a hole in the floor for a rivnut if I don't have to. Will probably be 3D Scanning the pedal and floor to design a bracket.
I also took off the rear shocks that I plan to put on the car, originally off a G63 wtith ~90k miles. The rear shocks look exactly the same. Same shock length, same body length, same exact internal bumpstops, etc. This i'm not too surprised about since the OE G55 and OE G63 springs are exactly the same. It's funny how my old G55 shocks actually have the same amount of miles on them compared to the much better condition G63 used shocks.
The new Wolfbox 840s has worked well. Low cost add for a lot of functionality. Highly recommended if you're still using the traditional mirror. Not really an upgrade from my previous system, but it works so I guess you can consider that an upgrade. Great field of view, clear picture, and very clear video.
I removed one of my front Diode Dynamics Elite Series Type F2 fog lights to install the new brackets to aim them lower. This is a shot of the old brackets that have been on the G for the past 3+ months. They still look perfect.
You can sort of see the angle change here. The light is aimed 1.5 degrees down to get them to shine in a better (lower) pattern.
Here are the lights installed. The bottom of the light is inset more than the originals, so do look slightly better IMO.
Here's another closeup of the lights and how they fit with the plastic surrounds. Both sides fit differently and that's not a surprise as the plastic surrounds don't fit that well to the bumper anyway.
I only installed the new brackets on the driver side, and you can very clearly see the difference here. G is only about 5ft from the garage door, but the light angle is significantly lower with just the 1.5 degree change. I think at this point the brackets are ready for sale. Will post on IG soon. If anyone is interested, feel free to reach out. Significant improvement in fog-light performance and much more OE looking than the SSC2 Pro pod lights that I used previously. Also a good amount less expensive, but still with very similar light output performance.
04-06-2024, 02:01 AM
