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Well, I installed a wood steering wheel yesterday and discovered that the car
(2003) will no longer change gears, when
using the shifter.
Anyone know of a hack, to get the shifter
function back?
I'm guessing you installed a newer steering wheel? If so, the electronics inside the wheel and steering wheel column have changed and it is not plug and play. There's a long thread here with all the info you'll have to search for it. Off the top of my head, you need the airbag, steering wheel column with all internals, and a wiring harness needs to be cut and soldered as the pins are different.
After that, you need to go into Xentry and disable the steering wheel shift buttons, then the new paddles and everything will work as expected.
I installed a wood steering wheel from a
2002 S600. It has no paddles.
This replaced the stock S55 AMG wheel,
which has paddles.
I had to disconnect a small white harness
connector, which only has two wires going
to it. That connector/harness goes to the
left and right paddle switches (S55 wheel).
I used to have the same 2002 S600
wood steering wheel in my 2001 S500,
and the shifter could change gears, no problem.
I installed a wood steering wheel from a
2002 S600. It has no paddles.
This replaced the stock S55 AMG wheel,
which has paddles.
I had to disconnect a small white harness
connector, which only has two wires going
to it. That connector/harness goes to the
left and right paddle switches (S55 wheel).
I used to have the same 2002 S600
wood steering wheel in my 2001 S500,
and the shifter could change gears, no problem.
In your 2003 S55 (and most 2003-2006 amgs that came with steering wheel shift buttons), the "up" shift button is a normally closed switch ... SO, when it is removed from the circuit, the car (logic in floor shifter that looks at the voltage related to the 2-pin connector you removed) thinks that you are depressing the "up" shift button. The floor shifter was programmed for the presence of these buttons and now it is too late to change it back. The solution is to EITHER plug the harness back in (along with the 2 switches) and try to tuck it all under the air bag ..... OR, a better/more elegant solution would be to wire a resistor and zener diode (100 ohm resistor, 5.3 volt zener) in series IN PLACE OF the original shift buttons. If you want to send me an email at Latemodel21@yahoo.com, I can give you more details, OR I can make the "elegant" solution for you.
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