ReadTheBook
Autocross Newbie
- Location
- Bay Area Smoke Hell
- Car(s)
- DVP Spektrm, MK4 R32
TL;DR: I ripped the DSG connector when disassembling my steering wheel trim and repaired it for under $15 instead of buying a new DSG paddle assembly for around $150 shipped.
So of course I can’t leave well enough alone and a couple of days after I got my car back from engine replacement I decided to finally use the wheel wrap I had sitting around. I’d already done a Golf to GTI steering wheel swap (along with a wrap on that wheel) in our Alltrack and figured, no big deal. To get the cleanest possible wrap, I opted to remove the silver trim and buttons from the wheel and then reinstall after the wheel was wrapped, as I did on my wife’s car w/o incident.
Well, of course, the silver trim and multifunction buttons on my GTI wheel popped off easier than on the wheel I did in my wife’s car, which unfortunately meant they came off much faster when I pulled on the trim and I ended up ripping the 3 wire connector fo the DSG up shift paddle. When this happened I immediately noted the order/positions of the wires for later.
First I tried to de-pin the plastic connector and solder the pins back to the wires, unfortunately that didn’t turn out so well because one of the wires was quite damaged and ended up just sort of falling apart as my neighbor was soldering them (I can fiddle my way through soldering but I’m no expert, especially with small stuff like this, so I enlisted his help). The connectors are also not meant for solder, rather require a special crimp tool, and are absolutely tiny. As you can see, this is not a good solution.
We decided to get new pins and a new connector and start over. Off to Digikey.com He and I headed and we scoured the connectors and pins until we found just the right match that VW uses.
On the wires the pins are part SPHD-002T-P0.5 by JST Sales America.
For the 3 pin plastic connector housing the part is PAP-03V-S by JST Sales America.
My neighbor also had the foresight to think about ordering pre-crimped jumper style cables in case we could not re-solder pins. These were APAPA22K102 by JST Sales America and this is ultimately the part we used to fix the problem in the end.
When we got the parts we evaluated and both agreed it would be best to splice in the jumper wires that had pre-crimped connectors on them rather than try to solder the pins again. I had some existing heat shrink with solder balls built in for joining wires but he chose to do his own solder joins and just use part of the tubing without the solder balls to seal it all up nicely.
It worked out but was obviously a bit of a headache and personally I would have opted to find a competent electronics repair shop to do this job for me if I didn’t have an awesome neighbor who happens to build electronics.
The to buy a new paddle assembly was ~$150, the parts/shipping from digikey came to $12-$15 and a little waiting time.
Lesson learned.
So of course I can’t leave well enough alone and a couple of days after I got my car back from engine replacement I decided to finally use the wheel wrap I had sitting around. I’d already done a Golf to GTI steering wheel swap (along with a wrap on that wheel) in our Alltrack and figured, no big deal. To get the cleanest possible wrap, I opted to remove the silver trim and buttons from the wheel and then reinstall after the wheel was wrapped, as I did on my wife’s car w/o incident.
Well, of course, the silver trim and multifunction buttons on my GTI wheel popped off easier than on the wheel I did in my wife’s car, which unfortunately meant they came off much faster when I pulled on the trim and I ended up ripping the 3 wire connector fo the DSG up shift paddle. When this happened I immediately noted the order/positions of the wires for later.
First I tried to de-pin the plastic connector and solder the pins back to the wires, unfortunately that didn’t turn out so well because one of the wires was quite damaged and ended up just sort of falling apart as my neighbor was soldering them (I can fiddle my way through soldering but I’m no expert, especially with small stuff like this, so I enlisted his help). The connectors are also not meant for solder, rather require a special crimp tool, and are absolutely tiny. As you can see, this is not a good solution.
We decided to get new pins and a new connector and start over. Off to Digikey.com He and I headed and we scoured the connectors and pins until we found just the right match that VW uses.
On the wires the pins are part SPHD-002T-P0.5 by JST Sales America.
For the 3 pin plastic connector housing the part is PAP-03V-S by JST Sales America.
My neighbor also had the foresight to think about ordering pre-crimped jumper style cables in case we could not re-solder pins. These were APAPA22K102 by JST Sales America and this is ultimately the part we used to fix the problem in the end.
When we got the parts we evaluated and both agreed it would be best to splice in the jumper wires that had pre-crimped connectors on them rather than try to solder the pins again. I had some existing heat shrink with solder balls built in for joining wires but he chose to do his own solder joins and just use part of the tubing without the solder balls to seal it all up nicely.
It worked out but was obviously a bit of a headache and personally I would have opted to find a competent electronics repair shop to do this job for me if I didn’t have an awesome neighbor who happens to build electronics.
The to buy a new paddle assembly was ~$150, the parts/shipping from digikey came to $12-$15 and a little waiting time.
Lesson learned.
