Sunline Fan,
Your wheel swap was very well put together!
Would you know if the box on the Blackwood
is metal or fiberglas?
Thanks Brad

 

Next time send me a PM, I just now happened to see this.

Edit has been done for ya.

Stewart

 

Hi Brad,

That's a great question. I bought the steering wheel online/over the phone, so I never saw it in person. The last time I looked at a Blackwood up close was when they were at the dealer brand new.

However, based on the ones I've seen crashed (though I haven't seen one rear ended), the box sides seemed to bend some in minor accidents on the side, so I suspect they are metal. If they were fiberglass, I suspect they'd just shatter apart. I think the bed cap and rear barn doors are both fiberglass like the Excursions' rear doors are fiberglass.

Jon

 

Thanks Stewart, will do in the future!

 

I did a steering wheel swap on my 2001 Excursion. I had installed a new aftermarket stereo head unit, an AVIC Z140, in my truck and wanted to take advantage of the steering wheel controls. My Ex only had controls for cruise control. So I had to add aftermarket controls, a small pod that attaches to the wheel with a rubber strap or install a steering wheel with controls embedded like the ones in the Navigator.

I decided the best way to go was a steering wheel swap. I found a great deal on a 2000 Navigator wheel. There are options here. You can look for a wheel from a navigator, explorer, king ranch or Eddie Bauer truck. It would be great if you could find a wheel with all of the buttons function titles (button names) that you want. I could not but that's oaky.

The wheel I got has cruise controls on the left side. The controls are cruise on, cruise off, Set/Accel, coast, and resume all on the left side of the wheel. On the right side are controls for HVAC and radio functions. On the rights side there are actually 8 buttons on the right side that can be used.

Contact me and I can supply a diagram

My truck does not have the electronic HVAC and I don't think I will be adding those, so those buttons are available for other functions. The buttons on the wheel are all part of a network of resistors. The steering wheel breaks these resistor networks into three groups the cruise control, the HVAC and the radio controls. Each set has something that has been described as a resistor ladder. I will try to draw a diagram. As a button is depressed on the steering wheel a path to ground is created through one of the resistors, which causes a voltage drop on the wire. The voltage drop is felt by the device, the radio, the HVAC or the cruise control system. Each restive path is a unique value causing a unique voltage drop that is decoded by the device or system.
DIAGRAM...

one of the big concern with a steering wheel swap was connectivity through the clock spring behind the steering wheel. My Excursion has a clock spring with 5 wires, plus the airbag wires. So I guess that is a total of 7 wires. The colors are:

1. Royal Blue - battery voltage - this is used for the horn and for the cruise control turn on
2. Black - Ground - this is used for button lights, horn and the three resistive ladder networks (cruise control, HVAC and Radio)
3. Lt. Blue/Red stripe - Illumination Voltage - lights the buttons varies from 2-12 volts controlled by the dimmer switch
4. Lt. Blue / Black stripe. -Cruise control - this is where the voltage from the cruise control system comes from. I am not sure of the voltage here, I will check
5. Green / Orange strip - UNUSED - I am not sure what the function of this wire was, but I reuse it for radio controls.

The Navigator has an 8 wire clock spring. This clock spring has a much larger connector than the Excursion, even though it only adds one wire. The clock spring for the Navigator was about 120.00 dollars from Ford, and was not available the day I wanted one. The parts yard would not sell me a clock spring - they said I needed to buy the entire column. So I figured I would modify my clock spring.

The navigator wheel has 6 control wires, plus the airbag. The colors and functions are:

1. Royal Blue - battery voltage - this is used for the horn and for the cruise control turn on
2. Black - Ground - this is used for button lights, horn and the three resistive ladder networks (cruise control, HVAC and Radio)
3. Lt. Blue/Red stripe - Illumination Voltage - lights the buttons varies from 2-12 volts controlled by the dimmer switch
4. Lt. Blue / Black stripe. - Cruise control - this is where the voltage from the cruise control system comes from. I am not sure of the voltage here, I will check
5. Brown - Radio button - this is the voltage from the audio system to the resistive network.
6. White/Lt. Blue stripe - HVAC (Heat Ventilation and Air Conditioning) controls - this is the lead to the resistive ladder for the fan and temp controls.

Since my truck does not have the electronic HVAC unit I re-used the white/blue stripe wire and the 4 buttons associated with them for other functions. To do this I tied the Brown wire and the White/Lt. Blue wire together making one larger resistive network for the radio controls.

I cut the connector off of the both steering wheels and soldered the smaller connector, from the Excursion, to the Navigator steering wheel.

Excursion Connector. Navigator steering wheel
Royal Blue>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Royal Blue Black
Black>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Black
Lt. Blue/Red stripe>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Lt. Blue/Red stripe
Lt. Blue/Black stripe>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Lt. Blue/Black stripe
**Green/Red stripe>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Brown
**Green/Red Stripe>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>White/Lt. Blue stripe
(**Green/Red stripe, Brown and White/Lt. Blue wires are all soldered together)

Next I cut the Orange wire that comes out of the clock spring, under the dash board. I soldered this wire, from the clock spring to the input of the Axxess ACWS steering wheel adapter. I wired the adapter to Accessory power and ground and connected the 3.5 mm plug to the back of the radio.

Next I went through the manual programming rather than the automatic programming function. I set the controls as follows:

Steering Wheel Button Function
1. Volume Up Volume Up
2. Volume Down Volume Down
3. Mode Mode
4. Next Voice Control
5. Temp Up Favorites Up
6. Temp Down Favorites Down
7. Fan Up Phone Off Hook
8. Fan Down Phone On Hook

You can program these buttons to any function. These are the ones that worked best for me. With Voice Control I can Change the source, make a phone call and search artists to play. I can answer calls with the Phone off hook, or hang up with the phone on hook. Mode changes source ipod, XM, streaming audio ect.

 

Gosh, sounds like a lot of work. I try to work on the KISS principle, and having only the cruise controls on the steering wheel I like, (a hold over from my 87 Aerostar). But it sounds to me many of you have more luxurious desires than I do. I'm even looking at the idea of swapping out the 6 disc radio/CD unit for a unit which only has a single disc player.

 

The KISS principle is always good advice. My mother used to say, "Idle hands are the Devils workshop!" So I try to stay active. And the new steering wheel looks way better than the stock Excursion wheel.

Cheers!

 

Hello dear experts, here I am with this beautiful wood steering wheel I bought to replace my damaged and old original steering wheel in my 2001 Ford Excursion. As always there is something to take care of… Here we go:

My old steering wheel only controls cruise control, the new one controls that in the left side and in addition a bunch of other things on the right side. I know for a fact that my vehicle is not wired to control all these other features as radio, A/C, etc.
Here is what I want to do:

1)Makes cruise control work (only option available in my old steering wheel).
2)The lights of both controller work during the night (as it was before)
3)The worn works again.

My only guest is to have this done is to perform the following:

1-Cut and connect the old harness from the old steering wheel (little and black) in to the vehicle with the wires pilled off.

2-Cut the harness and pill off the wires from the new steering wheel.

3-Match and connect all wires from the vehicle (the wires coming out of the little and black harness I did in step 1) to the new steering wheel.


“Here is the problem”, I was told to match colors of the wires and should be OK (example: Blue with blue / green with green etc) but, I do not think the entire color match…

“Here is the Solution” If someone can tell me if this is the right way to do it. I think that if someone find the electrical diagram on both vehicles and compare them you should easily can tell me which wires do I need to joint from the vehicle to the new steering wheel, in order to connect: A) Cruise Control B) steering wheel buttons C) The horn.

Thank you friends and hope that someone can help me

 

Take a look at my post above yours. I did this on my excursion and everything works for me. If your truck has the digital climate control you can make those functions work. I used those buttons to control my stereo.

 

hey Jon, what did you ever do with your old '02 stock wheel??

 

Hey Russ, it now resides on GregN's Excursion. I put it up in my part out thread.

 

Russ

I think I have mine from my 2001 Excursion laying around in my office. Do you need one?
Chris

 

So you want to mount the Navigator wheel using your original clock spring?

If that's the case, yes, you'll need to rewire some stuff. The horn and airbag won't be affected because it'll plug in just like it did before, so no need to make any changes there.

When I did the job, I wanted it plug and play on the steering wheel end, so I made all my wiring changes farther down. I didn't document what was what farther up at the wheel, but I believe the wire colors were the same all the way down.

In looking at my notes, it looks like all of the wire colors for what you want to do should match. You'll want to match the following wires with their identical counterparts:

- Royal Blue wire: Cruise On only
- Solid black: Remaining cruise buttons (consistent ohms)
- Blue with Black Stripe: Remaining cruise buttons (varying ohms)
- Blue with Red Stripe: Button Illumination

Do you know what year Navigator your wheel came from? If you don't, post the part number on that blue sticker inside the steering wheel there, which will tell the part year. Wiring wise, I'm told '98-'00 Navigator wheels will match up to an '00-'01 Excursion, and a '01-'02 Navigator wheel will match up to an '02+ Excursion, but I've never confirmed any of this.

If these wires don't match up to what you have, on either end, try to track down what your current wheel has. Do the wire colors behind the airbag match those at the bottom of the steering column, by the fuse box area?

If you are having to figure out what each wire does, get a volt meter with an ohms readout. Take your old steering wheel, disconnect the main wiring plug to the clock spring (for the cruise buttons), put the pin from the meter on one of the plug's pins (and ground the ground wire to the metal on the wheel), and then start pressing the cruise buttons. The illumination wire shouldn't change by pressing the buttons. That solid black wire on mine had more consistent and lower ohm readings, whereas the blue with black stripe on mine had larger ohm readings that varied a lot between the buttons. The wire to just turn cruise on should just have a reading when pushing that button, not any of the others.

Hopefully this all makes sense. Let us know if you get it to work. If you do make changes to the wiring, go out on an open road and try it. You can turn the cruise on when going pretty slow, like 40, so you don't need to be on the highway. If your plugs will match up but the wiring colors are different, plug it in and try it. If you get out on the road and the system won't come on (or the buttons work incorrectly), you should be able to shut it off by pressing the brake (hopefully you had the recall done too).

 

not really...but i was thinking his looked a tad better then mine (top of mine where i hold the wheel is wearing slightly) if its tan and good shape maybe?


damn, thanks anyhow Jon

 

who ever junk that Navi **********