Balzo79
New Member
- Posts
- 2
- Location
- East Kilbride
Hi all, been a member for a few months and I thought I'd put out a little post regarding the audio controls running from the steering wheel stalk on my Freelander 1. When I bought it I had no control from the audio stalk or my horn buttons. This obviously flagged up a possible fail on my pre-mot test.
So......
Turns out that the Sony MEX-N4200BT head unit which the previous owner had fitted, hadn't been wired correctly, nor were the horn buttons working due to a fault in the rotary coupler. The steering wheel controls worked fine at the head unit plug (resistive controls giving different resistances depending on the button pressed) but they don't plug in to the head unit via the same plugs you use for the audio and power connections. I had to dig out a 3.5mm mono audio jack (the same plug you find on the end of a mono set of headphones), and had to connect the black/white and black/red wires at the stereo wiring loom (after cutting them at the connector plug) to the two cores on the audio jack. I then reconnected the audio jack to the appropriate plug on the rear of the head unit and used the stereo's built in learning facility to program the functions of each button press. I now have fully working control via my audio control steering wheel stalk.
Re the horn buttons......
Turns out I'd lost a core on my rotary coupler. Rather than buy new, I decided to utilise the defunct wiring for the cruise control function (not a standard option on my 1.8 petrol SE but the wiring is in place). Swapped pin 3 (knackered) with pin 5 in the steering wheel cavity behind the airbag and rewired the plug behind the steering wheel in the same way. Now have working horn buttons and saved myself a few quid with a multimeter and a couple of hand tools. Hope this post helps others, all the best.
So......
Turns out that the Sony MEX-N4200BT head unit which the previous owner had fitted, hadn't been wired correctly, nor were the horn buttons working due to a fault in the rotary coupler. The steering wheel controls worked fine at the head unit plug (resistive controls giving different resistances depending on the button pressed) but they don't plug in to the head unit via the same plugs you use for the audio and power connections. I had to dig out a 3.5mm mono audio jack (the same plug you find on the end of a mono set of headphones), and had to connect the black/white and black/red wires at the stereo wiring loom (after cutting them at the connector plug) to the two cores on the audio jack. I then reconnected the audio jack to the appropriate plug on the rear of the head unit and used the stereo's built in learning facility to program the functions of each button press. I now have fully working control via my audio control steering wheel stalk.
Re the horn buttons......
Turns out I'd lost a core on my rotary coupler. Rather than buy new, I decided to utilise the defunct wiring for the cruise control function (not a standard option on my 1.8 petrol SE but the wiring is in place). Swapped pin 3 (knackered) with pin 5 in the steering wheel cavity behind the airbag and rewired the plug behind the steering wheel in the same way. Now have working horn buttons and saved myself a few quid with a multimeter and a couple of hand tools. Hope this post helps others, all the best.
