So my journey in this car started on 92'600km. Car is about to reach 160'000km, if not today definitely tomorrow. Still makes daily driving a pleasure. Not without it's hiccups but all very manageable.
On to some DIY work that was done on the car. I never really liked the grey interior. Though a black interior was always a dream, getting ones hands on all the correct required parts and in a condition you would like...not easy or cheap. I did however start an interior do-over in June 2003. The difficult part is doing this while the car is also your daily and you not working from home anymore (unfortunate). Which meant, if something was started on a Saturday morning, the car had to be in a drivable state again on the Sunday evening before going to bed. Mean, you need a driver seat, access to steering wheel and all the controls required to signal on the road. Most importantly, a radio and speakers for some background music.
This meant, I split the project up in parts. What triggered the start, was having the windscreen swapped with one that can take a RLS (rain-light-sensor). While the windscreen was out, the first thing I did was to remove the A-pillars, because removing the screws is just that much easier with the windscreen out of the way. This also meant that I might as well start with the B and C pillars to get to the roof lining, where I had to run new wires anyway.
Unfortunately I didn't take photos of EVERYTHING along the way, but will post some bits.
The windscreen. Was done with a mobile unit from PG Glass at home. I got outstanding service and a steal of a price so very happy with them. This isn't an OEM windscreen, but it came out of another car and the RLS worked on it.
The windscreen with the RLS installed. Here you can see, I only have the factory wires for the clown nose to blink when the alarm is armed.
Next step was to add in wiring.
Plug with all the wires.
Fed in to the sensor. So unfortunately the wiring I got, from the original car it ran through the right A-pillar, down to behind the steering, behind the HVAC unit then to the right side where the fuses etc. are. Well, the wires were to short so I couldn't do them the OEM way and had to go to the left A-pillar.
Now, I did t his as OEM as possible. Added 2x new fuses and got the correct connectors to put in behind and have them match up to the OEM locations of where to find a fuse for the auto dimming mirror power and the RLS sensor power. Only photo I took seems to be of me figuring out the pin numbers on one of the plugs on the GM5 module. You need to hook into the wiper return signal wire, which is the only wire I had to split down here, because my car didn't come with the splitter for this the way the OEM way is for cars that have RS or RLS from factory.
On to some DIY work that was done on the car. I never really liked the grey interior. Though a black interior was always a dream, getting ones hands on all the correct required parts and in a condition you would like...not easy or cheap. I did however start an interior do-over in June 2003. The difficult part is doing this while the car is also your daily and you not working from home anymore (unfortunate). Which meant, if something was started on a Saturday morning, the car had to be in a drivable state again on the Sunday evening before going to bed. Mean, you need a driver seat, access to steering wheel and all the controls required to signal on the road. Most importantly, a radio and speakers for some background music.
This meant, I split the project up in parts. What triggered the start, was having the windscreen swapped with one that can take a RLS (rain-light-sensor). While the windscreen was out, the first thing I did was to remove the A-pillars, because removing the screws is just that much easier with the windscreen out of the way. This also meant that I might as well start with the B and C pillars to get to the roof lining, where I had to run new wires anyway.
Unfortunately I didn't take photos of EVERYTHING along the way, but will post some bits.
The windscreen. Was done with a mobile unit from PG Glass at home. I got outstanding service and a steal of a price so very happy with them. This isn't an OEM windscreen, but it came out of another car and the RLS worked on it.
The windscreen with the RLS installed. Here you can see, I only have the factory wires for the clown nose to blink when the alarm is armed.
Next step was to add in wiring.
Plug with all the wires.
Fed in to the sensor. So unfortunately the wiring I got, from the original car it ran through the right A-pillar, down to behind the steering, behind the HVAC unit then to the right side where the fuses etc. are. Well, the wires were to short so I couldn't do them the OEM way and had to go to the left A-pillar.
Now, I did t his as OEM as possible. Added 2x new fuses and got the correct connectors to put in behind and have them match up to the OEM locations of where to find a fuse for the auto dimming mirror power and the RLS sensor power. Only photo I took seems to be of me figuring out the pin numbers on one of the plugs on the GM5 module. You need to hook into the wiper return signal wire, which is the only wire I had to split down here, because my car didn't come with the splitter for this the way the OEM way is for cars that have RS or RLS from factory.
