Thread: Steering wheel audio controls

Not plug and play at all, it has nothing to do with nanocom or similar, it's about te vehicle's main dashboard harness which if your's was not equipped from factory with steering wheel controls the lower line harness doesnt have the necessary wiring. All you can do is to fit a unit with wireless controll pack which you can retrofit easily as they are built to fit almost any steering wheel... or you need something like this Landrover Discovery 2 steering wheel control interface (HARMAN/KARDON AMPLIFIED SYSTEMS) - InCarTec to suit your radio

Originally Posted by sierrafery

Not plug and play at all, it has nothing to do with nanocom or similar, it's about te vehicle's main dashboard harness which if your's was not equipped from factory with steering wheel controls the lower line harness doesnt have the necessary wiring. All you can do is to fit a unit with wireless controll pack which you can retrofit easily as they are built to fit almost any steering wheel... or you need something like this Landrover Discovery 2 steering wheel control interface (HARMAN/KARDON AMPLIFIED SYSTEMS) - InCarTec to suit your radio

Thanks, sf. I'm reasonably handy with wiring, well, I used to be. I know of a donor car. Do you think the dash/cluster harness will plug into the car's main loom? Or were LR silly enough to have looms that were bespoke? ( The Japanese showed us the folly of that back in the 70s or perhaps earlier. )

The cheap radio I got plugged directly into the existing radio harness with zero mods needed. But I think the original head unit in my low end car was a Eurovox.

Provided I can get the stuff out of the donor then I'm prepared to put in the time, but if I have to go the "add on" route I can't be bothered, it doesn't matter that much. It's just that the biggish screen stuff no longer comes with handy knobs.

Originally Posted by Tins

Thanks, sf. I'm reasonably handy with wiring, well, I used to be. I know of a donor car. Do you think the dash/cluster harness will plug into the car's main loom? Or were LR silly enough to have looms that were bespoke? ( The Japanese showed us the folly of that back in the 70s or perhaps earlier. )

I'm affraid that the only way to achieve what you want is to replace the whole main dash harness cos there are the circuits and they are not compatible with each other...it's about the complex harness with many connectors shown here Discovery 2 1998 - 2004 Classic (l318) / Harness-main (rhd,with Diesel Engines) | Jaguar Land Rover Classic Parts nr. 1, click on + to see how many they are. I dont see any way around this but i didnt even think about it too much cos seems too complicated to botch it up somehow. Sorry but i can't help you more with this

You’ve been a great help. You have definitely helped me decide to do without 😂
But seriously, thanks. I was hoping it would be you who chipped in.

Looking at the wiring diagrams I suspect it won't be the worst to do, there's only one part number for the rotary coupler so if you're fitting a complete steering wheel it should plug in to the rotary coupler and then you'd just need to run two wires from C0082 (pins 1 & 2) to your headunit. Fairly sure that's the 6 pin version of the switch connectors so pins are readily available (or pull the wires out of the donor harnes imho more effort but also I've got crimpers/pins etc to make cables up)

Originally Posted by admiralranga

Looking at the wiring diagrams I suspect it won't be the worst to do, there's only one part number for the rotary coupler so if you're fitting a complete steering wheel it should plug in to the rotary coupler and then you'd just need to run two wires from C0082 (pins 1 & 2) to your headunit. Fairly sure that's the 6 pin version of the switch connectors so pins are readily available (or pull the wires out of the donor harnes imho more effort but also I've got crimpers/pins etc to make cables up)

Thanks. I also have many types of terminals and crimpers, including Deutsch. Not bad at soldering either, although I prefer not to on cars. What I don't have is a wiring diagram, cos my copy of FreeRave has gone to [ insert deity of choice ]. Best I get a new one...

Originally Posted by admiralranga

Looking at the wiring diagrams I suspect it won't be the worst to do, there's only one part number for the rotary coupler so if you're fitting a complete steering wheel it should plug in to the rotary coupler and then you'd just need to run two wires from C0082 (pins 1 & 2) to your headunit. Fairly sure that's the 6 pin version of the switch connectors so pins are readily available (or pull the wires out of the donor harnes imho more effort but also I've got crimpers/pins etc to make cables up)

Which wiring diagram you mean cos there are many for ICE, base, middle, high line, etc all of them need dedicated main harness... IMO you are too optimist with that, but if you can do it i'll bow to you...the gist is that if the vehicle is fitted with a main harness which was not designed for steering wheel controll no matter what you do untill that section cos there will be no circuit there to connect it if you see what i mean... the wiring diagrams from RAVE are generic they dont show exaclty how the various harnesses were built.

Originally Posted by Tins

.... Not bad at soldering either, although I prefer not to on cars. What I don't have is a wiring diagram, cos my copy of FreeRave has gone to [ insert deity of choice ]. Best I get a new one...

I would give admiralrangers suggestion a try, or at least a look at.

Wouldn't install the wheel as such, just temporarily hook up the rotary coupler and remote dongle thingy.

You reckon the aftermarket radio went in without any mods to the LR wiring, hence the std radio plug??
So the std plug in the disco fit the new radio fine.

I have a few D2s now, one of them is a 'hiline' ... car isn't call hiline, but has the fancy-schmancy 1.5DIN radio head plus CD changer and whatever additional speakers.
In terms of hiline and 'lower line' remote controls, according to the electrical library they're all one and the same.

That is, doesnt' matter if hiline or not, the circuit diagram does look a bit different, as there are other/additional connections and wires in the hiline loom, but the two wires from remote that feed to the radio head unit still connect to the same connector same pins at the radio end anyhow.
So hi end and low end use the same radio connector. C0098(radio end).

The loom that SF talks about seems to go to a connector under the stg colums on the LHS of it. There should be four connectors mounted to the frame, arranged vertically. Two top are both black, then third down is white and bottom one is orange. So you have this setup? Take photo and post it. Black connector second from top is where the loom from the steering wheel control/coupler goes to, the hard mounted connector(C0067), the removable connector(C0229) is the one then heads to the radio connector.

ps. you dont' need fancy software to view rave files. They're just pdfs. so any pdf viewer will do, and still search terms and stuff.
I just use a plain ol(lightweight) pdf viewer to find stuff on RAVE. The hard bit about RAVE is knowing which pdf files you need to open.

If you want, I can somehow send you the pdf files you need, just open them with your preferred pdf viewing program.

and ps. if you have never used THESE solder/heatshrink wire connectors, I suggest you should try them. I've been using them maniacally for the past few years. so easy to connect broken wires together again. But you need a heat gun with a 180° deflector for best results.