Leon st fr towbar fitting!!

Muddybum

Active Member
Mar 10, 2015
62
0
Well!

As discussed on other threads, I have elected to do the complete install myself and try my best to document it as I go!

Well I have ordered and have in my possession....

1 Westfalia detachable towbar
1 set of complete wiring, including model specific wiring, split charging, 13 pin output plug
1 7 pin adapter to break out the wiring for my bike rack
Some waxoyl
Some thread-lock
A blanking plate from SEAT to cover the hole

Yet to sort

Coding in of the electrics, I have reached out in several directions on this subject and thus far have several offers of the equipment and just need the coding knowledge to go with it. :help:


Wish me luck, more to follow......... :)

Cheers
Simon
 

Muddybum

Active Member
Mar 10, 2015
62
0
I've opened the box......

First thoughts are that it all looks very impressive, good quality, wiring looks the part as does the bar...

Second thoughts, GULP!! The wiring looks fairly complex... :think: :help:

Back to work for now, will photograph and make a start later. By then I will hopefully have decided whether to do the electric or the oily bits first....

Cheers
Simon
 

Muddybum

Active Member
Mar 10, 2015
62
0
Well I decided to crack on and get the oily bits done last night!! :)

First thing I would say is that this would have gone a lot quicker if...

A) I had some detailed bumper removal instructions. :yes:
B) I had done the job before. :yes:

Anyway, I plugged on and took my time being very careful not to damage anything as I went.

I started with the the car on stands and the rear wheels taken off, I'm pretty sure I would do the same again for this part.

With the wheels off, I removed both inner wing liners from the rear arches, just TORX bolts, LOTS of them, easily a dozen per side I would guess including the mudflaps.

With those out of the way I could get a couple more TORX bolts that hold the bumper in place.

Underneath there was a panel on the nearside I removed with yet more bolts and then I moved up top.


Strip out the boot floor, the rear panel that surrounds the boot latch, 3 TORX bolts hold this in place, they are recessed.

With this gone, the side panels can be peeled back, the upper hard plastic runners for the parcel shelf, pull away with a single clip each side to release the carpet from the sides.

With both sides exposed, the light clusters can be removed, a single bolt holds them in, it can be rotated with a screw driver.

With the light clusters removed I took out the last couple of screws holding in the bumper!!


And breath!!! :thumbup:



At this point I will revisit my earlier point about knowledge and having done it before. I then spent many hours, in darkness, trying to figure out how to get the bumper off.

When I finally figured it out, I kicked myself all over after having spent ages messing on and also taking off more unnecessary parts.

:banghead::banghead2: :crash: :help: :think: :shrug:

The bumper outer unclips, actually quite easily and leaves the side frames intact and BOLTED to the car.


So bumper off, rear cross member swiftly unbolted, time for towbar fitting!! :thumbup:

I had a small issue, in that that bar needs to insert into the rear chassis legs and the supplied bar was a little too wide. The legs of the towbar just needed compressing a little but they were immensely strong and I couldn't get a good enough grip whilst juggling the bar to get the ends entered into the two apertures.

So I got some rope out, rigged up 2 to 1 knot to give me some leverage and squeezed the legs in an inch or so. the same could easily be achieved with a ratchet strap I would think. With the legs squeezed, it went right in just perfect. :)

I fitted the 4 bolts with some thread-lock, the OS ones were very easy, worth note though the rear most one was covered by some sticky tape, I initially though I might need to drill!

The NS ones were a little trickier but only because the exhaust back-box needed dropping down a little and also the heat shield.

At this point I fitted the 13 pin electrics to the bar and threaded the wiring up into the NS quarter via a grommet that gets replaced with the one on the wiring. This also goes above the heat shield so don't refit it yet!


Now for the bumper cut!! :(: :cry:


Two options

  1. Use the template, make a large cut which goes up into the more visible area but allows for the black blanking plate to be fitted when the tow ball is removed. This method cuts out a square shape and leaves material on all 4 sides, so a hole more than a cutout.
  2. Cut very low down on the very underside which is not visible, do it by eye and try to cut as little as possible. With this method though the cut starts at the edge.


I opted for option 2, I fitted the bumper with the ball removed and by eye and with a marker I worked out how much to remove. I nearly got it right, but after refitting I will need to remove some more material.

At this point it was very late..... :sleeping: :sleepy:

I boxed up the rear end, refitted all the parts needed to seal the vehicle from water ingress and be able to lock it, threw the rest in the garage and vowed to return and fight another day!!

There are some photos here https://www.flickr.com/photos/85101128@N00/sets/72157652677327092

[B)]

To be continued................
 

Muddybum

Active Member
Mar 10, 2015
62
0
Update.....

A quick hour at lunch time with fresh eyes and some coffee on board and the mechanicals are all now finished. I ended up with more of a bumper cut than I wanted, perhaps the Witter bar would have been a better option, it is done now though so hey ho.


Next up is the electrics..... :help: :think:

To be continued..........
 

dw911

Active Member
Mar 30, 2013
1,036
6
Great write up, thanks for posting it up :)
Looking forward to reading the rest when you post it up
 
Last edited:

Muddybum

Active Member
Mar 10, 2015
62
0
No more progress I'm afraid, I need a good run at the electrics where the car can be disabled for a while, Tues/Wed is looking good.

I did find another small issue, there is just not quite enough clearance to get the plug into the 13 pin outlet so some modification may be required or yet more bumper cut. :cry:

To be continued..........
 

Muddybum

Active Member
Mar 10, 2015
62
0
You know when you wish you'd just paid someone to do a job and you wish you'd never started........

:cry: :confused: :help:

To be continued.....I'm going back in!!
 

dids

Active Member
Apr 5, 2015
209
1
Stockport
I got to agree, I watched him fit my tow bar, fitting the bar was not to bad but the wiring was a lot harder.
 

Muddybum

Active Member
Mar 10, 2015
62
0
So at this point it would be tempting to say "PAY SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT!"

But, as with the mechanical parts, half the battle with stripping out the interior for the wiring access is that I've not done it before on this car.

It took me 3 hours last night to get to the point where all the necessary stuff is off the car and out of the way. I was super careful not to break anything and the car did fight me all the way!

If I was to do the same strip again though, I'd do it in about 30 minutes, honestly.

So while the stripping part is still pretty clear in my head, I'll write down what I can remember.

Interior stripping for wiring

Start at the back, remove the boot floor, parcel shelf, rear panel (Held on by 3 TORX screws T30 I think).
Remove the side trim on the left, lift away the upper panel that supports the parcel shelf at the edge nearest the boot seal. One single clip is needed off to allow the left boot panel to come clear.

You should not have the recess behind the panel visible and have room to get in over the wheel arch. This is all that needs to come out of the boot.

Remove the rear seat base.
For this, remove the Isofix trims, both the blanking plug and also the other bit of plastic too, it unclips. There are 3 or 4 of these so 6 or 8 pieces of plastic.

The front of the seats just pulls up, you then have to push the seat towards the rear of the car to unclip it from the rear mounts. The is a single post on each side that the seat clips behind. See photos.

Remove the panel inside the nearside rear door to the right. It looks like it is attached to the whole side piece where the shelf runs but it isn't! A relatively small piece comes off on its own, just clips hold it in. With it removed you can see or reach right through to the space we exposed in the boot behind the side panel, basically right over the rear wheel arch.

Remove the door sill panel

This is the panel that runs the full length of the car and ends where the bonnet pull is mounted.
This is purely held on by clips, apart from one plug hidden behind the bonnet pull and 2 clips that are visible at the rear with the seat and other panel removed.
The bonnet pull remains in place, the panel slides over it.
This part took me ages, it was a pain but once it comes off all the various clips it comes right out of the way exposing the full length where the wiring will go.


Strip out the glovebox

What a pain.
Loads of screws.
Glove box folds down by squeezing the sides in to expose the fuse box.
Trim surrounding the DVD comes off to expose to bloody well hidden and very crucial screws. [:@]
Remove the DVD player and surround panel as part of this work, I took the DVD player out but I found the removable panel after and it may be possible to leave the DVD player attached to the glove box.

At this point I disconnected the battery!

Bear in mind your car cannot now be easily locked.

I continued to disconnect the DVD 7 plugs would you believe.
Remove the wiring from the Airbag override and the Aux port.

Panel comes off the side of the dashboard, there may have been screws behind here too.

Basically at this point you should have completely removed the glove box exposing all the wiring.


To be continued, please follow me on this somewhat painful journey!! :D
 

Muddybum

Active Member
Mar 10, 2015
62
0
Managed a bit more time on the wiring this evening after a damp couple of days and no time to get at it undisturbed...

Rear wiring was dead easy, plug in, mount the control unit, mount the relay and hook the wires to the earth point.

Didn't take too long to carefully route the 2 lots of wiring down the sill and tie wrap it to the existing wiring.

The the wiring at the front.....

Well once done it actually makes much more sense that the diagrams initially look.

I'm not saying it was easy but once you understand what is being done, it makes sense. The wiring basically adds in the rear control unit as a loop on the Can Bus. The wires come out of the plugs, 6 of them, and plug into the loom going to the back, the equivalent colours, 6 of them, go back in the original holes in the 2 plugs, a loop. :)

The next bit involves providing the power, 3 wires go into the back of the fuse box and all tie up to feed the control unit and the aux trailer wiring also, very tidy. Best bit is, no need to go under the bonnet with wiring, it all terminates inside.

I got stuck actually feeding the plugs into the back of the fuse box, it is the first part of the Westfalia kit which has not been absolutely perfect. I am tired and it was dark so it might just be me, I will revisit in the morning.

Once these connections are in, it is boxing up time and then coding time!!

The stripping of the Can Bus wires and the fuse box was tricky but it does all come to bits with a little patience and some searching around for various bits that come off to assist. :)

To be continued...........again.............:D

Cheers
Simon
 

Muddybum

Active Member
Mar 10, 2015
62
0
Out of interest did your Leon come with tow bar pre-installation wiring?

No Bogwoppit, there was no pre-wiring on my vehicle, unfortunately!

I'll put the latest update on later this morning, I bet you can't wait! :funk:

Cheers
Simon
 

seatstu

Full Member
Apr 15, 2004
209
0
I'm doing the same on my FR using the Westfalia tow bar and dedicated electrics.

I've got as far as mounting the bar and got the electrics through in to the boot, going to carry on tomorrow with the electrics weather permitting.

I take it you haven't gone for the switched live on pin 10 of the 13 pin connector which is for running a caravan fridge? as you say you are making all connections inside the car. The switched fridge supply needs to be wired back to the battery and is a seperate wiring kit with relay e.t.c. Just wondering if you know where to get through to the engine bay from the fuse box area?
 

Muddybum

Active Member
Mar 10, 2015
62
0
I'm doing the same on my FR using the Westfalia tow bar and dedicated electrics.

I've got as far as mounting the bar and got the electrics through in to the boot, going to carry on tomorrow with the electrics weather permitting.

I take it you haven't gone for the switched live on pin 10 of the 13 pin connector which is for running a caravan fridge? as you say you are making all connections inside the car. The switched fridge supply needs to be wired back to the battery and is a seperate wiring kit with relay e.t.c. Just wondering if you know where to get through to the engine bay from the fuse box area?


Hi Seatstu,
I answer to your questions before I put the latest update on....

I went for the full install including the "fridge" feed, in honesty that part is very easy in comparison to the main wiring. I didn't go through to the engine bay, you don't need to. The wiring has the length to go through and you could if you wanted to, but there are several points on the fuse box that are unused and of a suitable amperage to support the switched power wiring.

The hard part is the actual vehicle wiring, I'd be interested to know how you got on with that part, I could do it in half the time now I know how and understand but the pictures were challenging and taking the car to bits was also a battle.

Good luck! :)

Cheers
Simon
 

Muddybum

Active Member
Mar 10, 2015
62
0
Update time....

Sorry it's been a while, work has been mental.....

  1. Finished fitting all the wiring.
  2. Boxed up all the interior.
  3. Did some final tweaking on the external wiring mounting point to make it accessible without a further bumper cut.

So, I had the battery off during the install and when re-powered I did get a number of faults on the dash, traction control, parking sensors and also tyre pressures. But once driving they all cleared and did not come back. It has been this way for a week now almost.

To do!

  1. Get the coding work done, I plan on contacting the suppliers of the bar and wiring to see if they can get the codes from one of their fitters. Failing that I will get a local fitting firm to help me out, they will no doubt want some pennies!
  2. Test all the wiring actually works, not done this yet but I am very confident it will all work.


I'll let you know how the final step goes but if anyone has any Qs please feel free to ask.

P.S there are a few more photos online now also.

Cheers
Simon
 

seatstu

Full Member
Apr 15, 2004
209
0
Hi Simon,

I'm at the point of running the cables down the inside of the car, now raining so got to wait for it to stop.....

I've mounted the control box in the wheel arch between the outer and inner skin of the car as the boot panel wouldn't fit if I put it where the instructions say.

I am interested in where you picked up the live for the switched live in the fuse box. Did the connector that comes on the yellow wire fit in the fuse box or did you connect it to another wire? I would like to seperately fuse it just to be on the safe side.

I am going to get mine coded at the dealers. I did this when I fitted a tow bar to my MK2 Cupra I had. If I remember it only cost £45 and it all worked perfectly.

Cheers
Stu.
 
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