Retrofitting radio controlled clock

[HPsauce]

Originally Posted by notorious

Will kill him on the spot without hesitation.

I'd insist they fix it if I caught them; would probably require a whole new dashboard.

All recoded and reassembled, the receiver is currently sitting on top of the dash by the drivers A-pillar and vents. I'll wait and see what happens over the weekend.

[IT]

Originally Posted by notorious

I'd pay a lot catching him doing this. Will kill him on the spot without hesitation.

I'd second that. Sadly, the D2 is of that era where almost everybody had a hand free phone or 2 installed during the cars liftime, and maybe a tracker, and worse still, sometimes aftermarket audio and every amateur under the sun has a go at ripping the interior apart to get their bit in....

I saw a lot of very sad examples of cars with poor interiors when dismantling at a8parts. Sad thing is, the owners always thought their car was 'mint' but I knew theyd had rattles, knocks and squeaks for the life of their ownership that just should never have been there.

I see less hands free phones etc now that bluetooth is widespread, so heres hoping the issue goes away a bit...

[notorious]

OK, Adrian came here today.
We removed insides from his center console and installed his receiver in OEM location.
Started 10:30 and finished 3:20. Everything works tip top with his receiver in his car without heated windscreen
on exactly the same spot where I tested my car. I may have rubbish example of receiver...
Adrian will write a report.

[Adrian E]

First off, I have to say a MASSIVE thank you to Sergey and his family for putting up with me 'popping round' and taking up so much of their day. Huge thanks for the lovely cheesecake and lunch too - I wasn't expecting to leave feeling fuller than when I arrived

OK, the job at hand. I'd already bought the factory bracket and screw to install the module and assumed when I read in ElsaWIN that installing through the instrument cluster was possible.....lets just say even with my small-ish hands there was no way on earth you were getting near it, but there were other places behind the cluster it might've been possible to mount it.



However I was extra keen to try and access the OE location so we started to explore getting the centre console area stripped out. Cutting out how we got to this point, the easiest way to do it as follows:

Remove the front mats, front seats all the way back, remove the trim from under the steering column to give you access to the back of the instrument cluster, remove the 2 side panels from the transmission tunnel (foot rest needs to come out the drivers side first), pull off the wood trim from around the radio area, then there are 4 bolts holding the frame for the climate/radio in place which are only visible once the side panels are removed from the transmission tunnel - 2 on each side. With those removed the radio etc will drop down a little, allowing easer removal of the air vents from the centre console which requires a hook shaped tool to fit into holes in the side of the vent and a really good tug!

With the vents removed you can then pull the entire radio etc forward (don't forget to protect everything around the gear selector!) and unplug EVERYTHING so you can get it right out of the way.

Now you can finally SEE where the radio module is supposed to be mounted, up behind where the vents come out:







In the picture above we've already mounted the bracket for the receiver just below the 2 small stickers to the right of the centre line of the car. There is a black plastic panel with no pre-drilled hole so we test fitted the bracket on both sides (there is a recess there which the bracket is obviously designed to sit in) and despite it being the 'wrong' side compared to the OEM location for LHD it actually sits better on the right! We ended up holding the bracket in place and marking it with the screw, then pre-drilled with a small drill so we could get the screw in easier. Note that there is a gaping air intake right under where you're working so either be extra careful or put something over the vents to stop stuff disappearing!

Fitted the bracket and then got the radio receiver mounted again, once Sergey had worked his magic with auto foam padding and fabric tape to give it an OEM look and stop vibration.

Close up of the bracket installed:



Radio module fitted in place:



Ran the wiring along the same path as the rest to behind the cluster - it should be possible to do this job without removing the cluster and just removing the knee trim to get hold of the cable and plug it into the back of the cluster.

Quick bit of coding later (on my new second hand VCDS cable - cheers Sergey ) to tell the cluster it has the radio module and we set the time to 2.59am and switched ignition off - checked a few minutes later and sure enough the clock had set and the radio symbol is showing Car is away in the garage now and will probably get some use tomorrow, but after that will spend the week locked away so will be interesting to see if the radio symbol is still there on Friday next week when I use the car again.

We moved my car to where Sergey had been testing his and reset the clock and it did again get a fix very quickly.

Hope that makes sense and happy to answer any questions.

Thanks again Sergey - above and beyond the call of duty!

Adrian

[HPsauce]

Well done, both of you.
Mine hasn't found a signal yet, even though I tried the "set clock to 2:59am" trick a couple of times and left it overnight last night.
I'm going to go back and take the knee panel off, just to make sure I've plugged it in properly/fully.

[notorious]

HP, if cable was not fully plugged cluster would have thrown error by now. Check errors first.

All VAG electrical plugs are asymmetrical, so it is impossible to plug them upside down. When you plug connector make sure that small plastic 'wedge' is from the bottom side of the plug. But it won't go upside down anyway.

Why did you mount knee panel back? Just remove it completely and drive some time without it until you find good place for receiver.

I haven't found yet proper alternative spot...

[Architex_mA8tey]

Excellent write up and contributions from all
Added to section upgrades sticky.

[HPsauce]

Result!
Tried again just now, just set the clock to 02:58 (no fuse pulling) and came back a few minutes later to this (sorry about poor phone photo).
I had just placed the receiver on the drivers door armrest, pretty much the same place as yesterday, and same parking spot.
Edit: Took a better photo after correcting to BST.

I'm going to leave it for a few days in the "knee hole" and then think about fitting it in the recess behind the instruments, or the cowl above.

[HPsauce]

Originally Posted by notorious

If all synch sessions at 3am, 4am and 5am ended with failure cluster makes additional synch sessions after each trip. Definition of trip from cluster point of view: ignition goes on, then cluster receives some speed signal, ignition goes off, key is removed and cluster displays go to sleep mode by timeout. Immediately after that synch session starts.
* If all synch sessions ended with failure for the last 3 days cluster goes back to normal quartz clock mode.

Very useful analysis, thanks.

My initial (forced) sync was on Sunday morning around 10:30am, since then the receiver has been sitting in the "knee hole" and the radio indicator has remained on.
As there have been 3 "overnights" since then I'm assuming it's getting a signal OK there.

I'll give it a few more days then tuck it away.

[Adrian E]

Mine has been locked in the garage since I got back from Sergey's on Saturday - I'll be pulling it out on Friday morning to take it for a wheel refurb so if at that point the symbol is still showing it will have been working fine getting a signal from inside my garage. Will confirm Friday on the result