Added steering wheel with functioning buttons

Boricua SS

Original poster
Member
Nov 20, 2011
3,080
Ohio
Howdy folks... Been a while.

I've been stock piling parts and keeping quiet while doing months and months and months of research on here, "the other site", tbssowners, Tim's tech pages, multiple fb posts and DM'ing people on social media. First task was swapping my 1SS steering wheel without the buttons to a steering wheel with the buttons and to make them work! Last night, i finally bit the bullet and tackled this with 100% success!. Through all of my research, pretty much all of the "important info" was lost, meaning articles were deleted, or members that did do this swap couldn't remember what wires did what, or the "OG's" that did this in the beginning did not swap steering wheels and used a stationary box that contained 4 switches or the vendor supplied Trailblazer Dash Plug that was modded to fit the buttons to toggle the prompts. So I'm going to solve that now and make an updated version for future people that want to tackle this.

This is a very easy and straight forward mod. Don't overthink it like i did. If you don't feel you're mechanically inclined, then this mod is not for you as you're dealing with airbags and clock springs. For how to's on removing your air bag and steering wheel, there are plenty of videos on YouTube on how to do this so it will save me the typing lol. Now i know SS' are different than your applications in the sense that all SS' have the DIC instrument cluster already. The capabilities are just dormant due to the trim package. What i mean by DIC is the Drivers Information Center for those that didn't know. It's where your mileage is displayed. Earlier model GMT360's did not come with the DIC. For clarification if yours does, if you open the driver door, does your cluster display read "drivers door ajar"?, or if your tires go low, does your cluster say "check tire pressure"?, etc... if so, then you have a DIC that's capable of being modded. If your cluster only displays mileage, then you have to find a cluster that has DIC capabilities from a donor vehicle. They are plug and play, but you will have to visit a dealer to get your mileage programmed to the new to you DIC. Clear so far?

Next, you will obviously need a Steering wheel with buttons. Mine came from a 2002 Bravada that i found on eBay. I didn't care what the buttons looked like as i was replacing them anyway. I only cared about the leather. Once you found your wheel, you will then need a clock spring from any vehicle that has a steering wheel with buttons. Mine came from a 2007 Rainier. Make sure you're keeping the clock spring straight at all times so you dont spin it and break it. You DO NOT need the WHOLE harness. You can cut the harness in half leaving you with only 4 plugs, 3 for the airbag, and one for the steering wheel buttons. You'll see what i mean in the pix. After you have all that, next are the pins. You will need 4 pins with wires to plug into your cluster wire harness. The non steering wheel button rigs do not have these wires coming from our cluster harness. I just cut the cluster harness from the Rainier i got the clock spring from and used 4 pins out of that. Again, you'll see that in the pix.

Here's the important info that everyone gets hung up on, WHAT WIRE DOES WHAT and WHERE TO CONNECT them...

A8 is fuel on the cluster and will go to the yellow wire on the clock spring harness
A9 is personalization and goes to the purple wire on the clock spring
A10 is trip and goes to the dark blue wire on the clock spring
A11 is select/ok and goes to the orange w/black stripe on the clock spring

The radio wires on the clock spring are the pink and green wires. I have not hooked this up yet but will in the next few days as i just got my Axxess ASWC-1 steering wheel control harness. If you have a factory radio, the volume/source buttons will not work. It takes alot more to get them working over an aftermarket radio. You have to get your BCM reprogrammed and run wiring to the BCM.

Lastly is the black wire from the clock spring. It's obviously a ground and will need to be grounded. The brown w/white stripe wire with the 2amp inline fuse is your illumination for the buttons and must get spliced into the brown w/white wire from your left headlight harness (if you're looking at the face of your headlight harness, it's the harness behind the parking light'headlight switch, not the harness behind the fog light button if you have one).

This is a brief overview of what I did. Now since i don't know what all the buttons do since i never had them, I'm not sure if the button i hit corresponds to what the DIC should read. I hit the button with the fuel pump on it and my gas mileage and fuel range popped up so that tells me I had the right wire for that one, etc...

Here is the clock spring that i cut and the gauge cluster wire harness that i cut from the donor vehicle.
20190701_002823[1].jpg

This was taken from one of the old threads i was researching and describes the 4 wires you have to add to your cluster. Also below are the wires i added to my cluster harness.
cluster description.JPG
20190629_194101.jpg

Let the fun begin!
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MONEY SHOT!
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Mektek

Member
May 2, 2017
656
FL
Earlier model GMT360's did not come with the DIC
sure they did - my 02 has the nice DIC :crackup:

I'm almost surprised that the SS didn't have higher level electronics.
Nice upgrade all around! Now I'm thinking about the blue backlit instrument panel. The last part of the interior that I haven't changed to LED......
 
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Blckshdw

Moderator
Nov 20, 2011
10,665
Tampa Bay Area, FL
members that did do this swap...

Dang, not even a text or PM? My feelings are hurt! :sadcry:

Nice work though, it's nice having the added feature, and looking stock doesn't it?
 
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HARDTRAILZ

Moderator
Nov 18, 2011
49,665
Well done. Maybe we can get a summer meet and I can see it in person.
 
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Mooseman

Moderator
Dec 4, 2011
25,257
Ottawa, ON
Very good info and timely for me as I will eventually be doing this to my 07 TB LS. I picked up a complete steering column and cluster so I won't have to deal with of the clockspring wiring as much.

I'm also very surprised the SS isn't equipped to the gills for the money that was originally paid for them. Hell, you don't even have auto-HVAC. Did it have Bose at least?

Just one slight correction. It is not possible for the dealer to change the odometer on an old cluster. They can only do that with brand new replacement clusters. None of the software they use can do it since the cluster becomes "locked". However, you can get a Digiprog odometer programmer from China. Just be aware that the original mileage is still detectable in the backgound if it is used illegally.
 
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Blckshdw

Moderator
Nov 20, 2011
10,665
Tampa Bay Area, FL
It is not possible for the dealer to change the odometer on an old cluster.

In my case, I visited a speedometer repair shop, and they were able to adjust the mileage on my DIC cluster, to match the non DIC cluster I was taking out. Took them about 20 minutes. :twocents:
 

Boricua SS

Original poster
Member
Nov 20, 2011
3,080
Ohio
Dang, not even a text or PM? My feelings are hurt! :sadcry:

Nice work though, it's nice having the added feature, and looking stock doesn't it?

I'm sorry buddy :grouphug:, I asked nicely and you taught me how to fish:crackup:... but yes it's amazing the amount of work that goes in just to have a stock option that makes a world of difference.

Well done. Maybe we can get a summer meet and I can see it in person.

I'll be looking for a thread soon :thumbsup:

Very good info and timely for me as I will eventually be doing this to my 07 TB LS. I picked up a complete steering column and cluster so I won't have to deal with of the clockspring wiring as much.

I'm also very surprised the SS isn't equipped to the gills for the money that was originally paid for them. Hell, you don't even have auto-HVAC. Did it have Bose at least?

Just one slight correction. It is not possible for the dealer to change the odometer on an old cluster. They can only do that with brand new replacement clusters. None of the software they use can do it since the cluster becomes "locked".

Oh lucky you! A complete column will pretty much eliminate 90% of the work :crackup:

But you're correct, no digital HVAC controls for me and no, my truck did not come with BOSE, however over the years of being with the platform and seeing everyone complain, that's not such a bad thing for me not having BOSE lol.

I'll eventually get this done to the brother-in-law SS. Thanks @Boricua SS for making this much easier then I would of expected.

No problem bud. Hope it goes as smoothly as it did for me.
 
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Drkreign

Member
Aug 24, 2020
2
VA
The radio wires on the clock spring are the pink and green wires. I have not hooked this up yet but will in the next few days as i just got my Axxess ASWC-1 steering wheel control harness. If you have a factory radio, the volume/source buttons will not work. It takes alot more to get them working over an aftermarket radio. You have to get your BCM reprogrammed and run wiring to the BCM.

Did you ever happen to attempt this? I currently am working on getting my PAC SWI-RC-1 to run off the green wire but I’m having no luck :cry:
 

Mooseman

Moderator
Dec 4, 2011
25,257
Ottawa, ON
What HU are you trying to use this on? I just did it without any interface to an Android HU.

 

Drkreign

Member
Aug 24, 2020
2
VA
What HU are you trying to use this on? I just did it without any interface to an Android HU.


I’m using a dual xdcpa9bt unit. I’m not sure if it matters but it uses a 3.5 port for the SWI.
 

Mooseman

Moderator
Dec 4, 2011
25,257
Ottawa, ON
Maybe those 3.5 ports use the same resistance scheme.
 

LikeEnvoy

Member
Apr 17, 2012
128
Winnipeg, MB
Hey, about swapping to a DIC cluster, do you think the cluster faceplates (with all the printing on) are an exact swap between the MPH versions and the KMH (metric) versions? It looks to me like the values are all aligned to the same position, so I would expect (or hope) that when driving at 100KMH the needle points to 100 on my existing cluster's faceplate and should point to 62mph on the imperial cluster's faceplate.
I ask because most clusters on eBay are imperial; I hardly see any KMH clusters with DIC on the market.
Therefore, I hope that if I buy an MPH cluster, I can simply pull the needles and fit my KMH faceplate over the circuit board instead and refit the needles.
Anyone know this for sure?
 

Mooseman

Moderator
Dec 4, 2011
25,257
Ottawa, ON
For sure? No. Best guess? Yes.
 

mrphoenix80

Member
Jan 1, 2013
251
So I am thinking about doing the cluster swap to get the DIC. Are there any issues with getting an older cluster? And I can't remember what info the DIC gives you. Looking at my cluster I have the traction control lights and the older clusters did not. I also do not have the cruise light and the older clusters do. Has this caused any issues? Also would love to get a trans temp reading. However I do not remember if that is in the DIC or not on the Envoy/Trailblazer?
 

Blckshdw

Moderator
Nov 20, 2011
10,665
Tampa Bay Area, FL
So I am thinking about doing the cluster swap to get the DIC. Are there any issues with getting an older cluster? And I can't remember what info the DIC gives you. Looking at my cluster I have the traction control lights and the older clusters did not. I also do not have the cruise light and the older clusters do. Has this caused any issues? Also would love to get a trans temp reading. However I do not remember if that is in the DIC or not on the Envoy/Trailblazer?

Changin the cluster won't give you any problems. You'll be able to see whatever gauges/lights are in the new cluster. Main issue is getting the mileage reprogrammed to match your correct numbers. There may be cluster repair shops in your area that can do this for you, that was the case when I made that same change.

For getting trans temp, we usually recommend getting a bluetooth OBDII adapter, and an app like Torque for your phone. This will also allow you to read gauges that don't exist in the cluster. :twocents:
 

mrphoenix80

Member
Jan 1, 2013
251
Going to have to try to set up torque again. It has been a few years but it would not let me see the trans temps before.. or that could have been on the ex's 02 Tahoe. I wish I could get the data to come to the screen on the pioneer head unit I have in there. I guess I could Screen mirror the phone to the head unit. I got the cluster from the bone yard and the wheel and clock spring/ignition harness for a song. However the cluster needs a couple motors and the stock lights just wont do. IF I could only remember who did the RED LED conversion a few years back.:whistle:

However at the moment I have bigger fish to fry. That dirty 4 letter word will be here soon.(S_ _ W)
And I took my winter ride out deer hunting the other day. So I am off to the yard for Subie parts and thought I might look for a newer cluster if I needed to.
 

Mooseman

Moderator
Dec 4, 2011
25,257
Ottawa, ON
Another option is a ScanGauge II. Can be a pain to program specific PIDs that aren't pre-programmed but displays just about anything.

What year truck you have and year cluster are you looking at?
 

Reprise

Lifetime VIP Donor
Supporting Donor
Member
Jul 22, 2015
2,724
IF I could only remember who did the RED LED conversion a few years back.:whistle:

There's a nice little cottage industry in repairing / upgrading GM instrument clusters (e.g.; there are resources online.) The best is a local resource, if you can find one, to avoid shipping back / forth.

My local Chicago-area CL has a guy who posts ads on the regular, and he specializes in GMT360s (repair & conversion) But the clusters from that era are pretty much the same across the truck lines, so you don't need a '360-specific' source; just someone familiar with GM truck clusters, in 'general'.
 

Boricua SS

Original poster
Member
Nov 20, 2011
3,080
Ohio
Did you ever happen to attempt this? I currently am working on getting my PAC SWI-RC-1 to run off the green wire but I’m having no luck :cry:


Yes I got the radio buttons working on the steering wheel. I was lucky enough to catch Blckshdw while he was reprogramming his harness and we troubleshot mine as well that night. The remaining pink wire from the harness needs to see voltage, so i connected it to the rear wiper switch (white wire IIRC), and then the green wire from the clock spring feeds your corresponding wire on the ASWC-1 harness. In my case, i had to trick the harness and make it think that it was being used for a 1999 Grand Prix. You're using the direct resistive output from the steering wheel so you have to use something old school that used it the same way, hence the 1999 grand prix, which on the ASWC-1 is the Yellow/Green wire. Once all that was hooked up, then I maually programmed my steering wheel buttons to the ASWC-1 harness and Voila, I have contols.
 

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