I'm swapping the steering wheel in my 1995 F350 (7.5L/460 with E4OD) from a 2-post (non-airbag) wheel to a 4-post (w/airbag) wheel, and I want my horn and cruise control to remain functional with the 4-post wheel's buttons. I DO NOT care about the airbag wiring, as my truck doesn't have the rest of the system to make an airbag work anyways, I only need to know which wires serve which purpose (which color wire is a ground, which controls the horn, cruise, etc.)

Can anyone tell me what the respective purposes are of the different colored wires are inside the steering wheel area (after the clock spring), and/or does anyone have a wiring diagram for the wires inside the steering wheel area (horn and cruise control wiring in the steering wheel is what I'm looking for)?

 

My 2-post wheel has black, blue w/black dots, and yellow wires.

My 4-post wheel has black, blue w/black dots, and pinkish-purple wires.

Do the black and blue wires both serve the same purpose in both wheels, with the yellow and purple wires controlling the same respective function in their different wheels? For example, does ground = black, horn = blue w/black dots, and cruise = yellow (in 2-post, non-AB) and purple (in 4-post, w/ab)?

 

I did the opposite swap but the wires should line up the same for you. I went from a '94 square airbag steering wheel to the older curvy non airbag wheel. Horn and cruise work perfectly.

 

Install looks good, but I'm afraid we're talking about different wires...

Here are the wires I'm looking at, and needing to splice properly.

These are the wires connecting my cruise control and horn buttons in my factory 2-post, non-airbag steering wheel.


They plug into my factory clock spring (contact ring). I need to cut them in the middle and essentially make a pigtail out of the wires and connector that plugs into my clock spring.

These are the same cruise control and horn wires, in the 4-post, airbag wheel that I'm trying to swap in.


As you can see, the 4-post wheel uses a pink/purple color wire instead of a yellow w/blue dots wire, like the 2-post does. Additionally, you can see that they both use black wires and blue w/ black dots wires.

What I need to know is whether the like colored wires serve the same purpose in both wheels, and if they do, does that mean that the yellow w/blue dots wire ALSO serves the same purpose as the pink/purple wires?

 

I've looked and don't have all the pictures needed unfortunately so I'm going to do my best to explain in words. I believe we're talking about the same wires. So currently you have a contact slip ring assembly and you're converting to a clock spring. So the contact posts connect to a cable that runs down the column and go into a grey connector. That cable needs to be taken out and the cable that connects to the clock put in it's place. The photo I show of my adapter is from clock spring to contact ring, so the cable colors should line up the same for you but opposite connectors. Difference is that you'll have the grey connector already under your dash so you'll "adapt" that to the black connector. The black connector cable will run up the column and plug into clock spring. Again I'm sorry I can't find the photos. Hopefully that makes sense

 

Yes, after successfully completing the swap now, I'm realizing that each wheel requires it's respective contactor style, a Clock Spring for the 4 post (airbag) wheel, and a sliding contact for the 2 post (non-airbag) wheel. That's something that I never understood before, I always thought they were the same thing and/or interchangeable, but they are not.

Pretty much everything beyond the connection to the respective contactor IS the same, though, with the only exception being that the clock spring has two additional wires (one orange and one white, iirc) coming out the back and running down the column for the airbag system, which won't connect to anything under the column/dash if your truck doesn't have the rest of the system in it. If that's the case for you, they can either be cut off, or simply left disconnected.

The plug at the other end of the clock spring or sliding contact harness is identical between both contactor styles, and can simply be unplugged, as you'll reconnect the new plug (from the new contactor you're converting to) into the exact same place you removed the old one from. No need to complicate things by cutting and splicing wires, just remove the entire old contactor and harness, all the way down to the plug under the dash. It's a plug-and-play install from there on out, simply reconnect all your plugs, put the dash and column plastics back together, and bolt on your new wheel.

Thank you for your patience in trying to explain it to me while I struggled to understand that my original plan wasn't going to work.

 

Cool, I'm glad you got it worked out! Throw some pictures on here so others can follow your swap and duplicate it!

 

Yes! Actually, I think I'm going to do a complete write-up on it as a separate thread entirely, so it's easy to find in the future for anyone looking to do the same swap. Will probably also shoot a quick video with it as well, and put it on YouTube since there's really no video footage out there of anyone doing the swap, which I feel would REALLY help clear things up for people!