How-To: 89+ Non-Airbag Steering Wheel into Pre-89 (MKIII)

[Jeff Lange]

As many of you know in 89 the MKIII got a nice new steering wheel, along with many other changes, specifically the cruise switch beside the steering wheel was removed, replaced with a button on the steering wheel and a cruise light on the tach.

Many people with pre-89 cars wish to use the new steering wheel, however they run into a problem of how to get the button on the steering wheel to work. Most people just leave it doing nothing and keep the stock switch. That obviously wasn't an option, since I'd hate to have a switch that does nothing, lol.

When you want to use the 89+ steering wheel on a pre-89 car, you're going to need the following things:

- 89+ Non-Airbag Steering Wheel
- 89+ Non-Airbag Steering Column Slipring
- 89+ Cruise Main Relay
- Another Coin Holder
- 89+ Tachometer (not really necessary)

The tach isn't necessary unless you want to know if cruise is on or not.

Here's what you do:

1. Take steering wheel off
2. Take plastic from under steering column off
3. Take plastic from steering column off
4. Disconnect 2 connectors going to steering column wiring.
5. Unscrew combination switch (part with turn signal/wiper control) and take it out
6. Take off the slipring from the combination switch (either pull out the connectors or cut the wires)
7. Wire in the new slipring (plug in connectors or solder wires), run the white/blue wire through the extender, but don't connect it into the connector, it's the cruise main wire.
8. Take out the cruise switch, the connector for it plugs right into the 89+ cruise relay, but some wires have to be changed.
9. Cut the wire going to pin 4 on the cruise main switch connector, solder in an extension from it to the white/blue wire left over from the combination switch
10. The wire previously going to pin 4 on the cruise main switch connector goes to the "CRUISE" terminal on the back of the gauge cluster (it is the ground side of the cruise LED, if you don't have an 89+ cluster, the "CRUISE" spot won't be easy to recognize, I'd check the LED to find which side is ground).
11. The "POWER" terminal on the gauge cluster cruise light gets +12V (you can jump it from an IGN+ terminal on the gauge cluster)
12. Pin 1 on the cruise main switch connector gets grounded (you can splice it together with the pin 3 wire, as it is ground as well).

Here are the pin numbers:

On the switch/relay:


On the connector plug:


At this point, put it all back together, the steering wheel will plug right in. You can put the cruise relay where you like, I put it under the steering column on the left side. The empty spot where the cruise switch was can be filled with a coin holder from another car.

Here's a few pics of my 88 (I also went to the 89+ black switches on the left side of the steering wheel).





Note: You can also use the complete 89 combination switch, you'll just have to cut the white/blue wire from the connector, but you'll get the new turn signal/wiper control, which is nice IMO (you can see them in my pic).

[Jeeves]

I'm already rockin' this mod.