Leon st fr towbar fitting!!

[Muddybum]

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.

With the kit I got came some instructions that were for multiple vehicles and caused quite a lot of confusion!

If you go down the route of correctly pulling all the pins on the vehicle harness and inserting the wires as instructed, it actually makes some of the wiring in the box redundant.

The feeds for the power to the back, one permanent live and one switched live, came form the fuse box. For the permanent live I used the same wiring that would have fed the harness wiring and ran in to the little supplied fuse holder with 4 connections.

For the ignition live, I found an unused live in the fuse box, ran my terminal in to the empty space and inserted a fuse.

For all of the wiring, there is a degree of actually understanding what is being achieved, if you get this it is a lot easier.

Leave yourself plenty of time for this part, lots of daylight and definitely somewhere dry!

Cheers
Simon

 

[seatstu]

With the kit I got came some instructions that were for multiple vehicles and caused quite a lot of confusion!

If you go down the route of correctly pulling all the pins on the vehicle harness and inserting the wires as instructed, it actually makes some of the wiring in the box redundant.

The feeds for the power to the back, one permanent live and one switched live, came form the fuse box. For the permanent live I used the same wiring that would have fed the harness wiring and ran in to the little supplied fuse holder with 4 connections.

For the ignition live, I found an unused live in the fuse box, ran my terminal in to the empty space and inserted a fuse.

For all of the wiring, there is a degree of actually understanding what is being achieved, if you get this it is a lot easier.

Leave yourself plenty of time for this part, lots of daylight and definitely somewhere dry!

Cheers
Simon

Hi Simon,

I take it you mean the black fuse holder that takes four fuses and in the instructions is meant for the Audi A3??

I am struggling to get to the plugs that go in to the BCM!! it is mounted sideways and the plugs face the inner wing, can't get in to get the plug out Also the fuse box comes out but not enough on the wiring to turn the fuse box over to get to the back of it

Did you also find the can bus plug and socket in the drivers footwell. I can't find it, the instructions show it and it looks like you have to connect it together?

I have the bumper cover and will fit this. It took me ages to decide to go this route rather than find a bar where the cut is invisible. I couldn't find one that actually had an invisible cut in the bumper.

Cheers
Stu.

 

[Muddybum]

Hi Stu,
So once the factory wiring is all fitted, the 4 position fuse holder becomes redundant. What I did was utilise this to get my permanent feed from the back of the fuse box. Had one of the feeds to the 4 position fuse holder been an ignition live also, this would have been perfect, sadly it was not. What I did was found a redundant fuse position, inserted a terminal in the blank position and ran that as my ignition live for the "fridge" wiring.

There were a couple of cuts and a small amount of soldering to make things proper.

The CAN BUS wire I never found, I believe it is already connected on our car.
For the plugs that face the inner wing that you need off, well, fiddly!

Take off the bonnet pull, it give you a little more room, you can then pull them down one at a time and then break open the plugs and VERY carefully make sure you get the right terminal numbers and colours for the wiring harness.

Effectively what you are doing here is creating a loop for the wires to the back, through the new control unit, and back to the plug.

Good luck stick at it!

Cheers
Simon

 

[Muddybum]

Right, final part!!


So it appears that lady luck is with me today!!

Get a message form the boss, "knock off early, you've earned it". Wow great me thinks, that is welcome as it has been a pain of a week!!

I know, I'll go down to the SEAT dealer and pick up my touch up stick, after that I can go to the place locally that does towbar fitting and bribe them to code in my towbar!

Picked up my pain stick and noticed a chap fitting a towbar to a SEAT LEON ST FR, like mine. He is one of these mobile guys who come and do the whole job.

So I wanders over, says hi and asks him how he is getting on. He is frustrated and is very stuck on the glove box and wiring part. I offered him some tips and showed him how to get the surround off where the CD player is, he is very grateful!

I then ask him if A) He can code in the towbar and B) Would he mind doing mine for a small sum of money.

He not only codes it all in for nothing, he also takes the time to get out his test kit and run through all the various checks.

JOB DONE!!


When checking the lights he confirmed the below few things.

The reversing sensors are disabled with the trailer attached.
The car fog light is disabled in favour of the trailer board fog light.

Yet to be confirmed by me is any impact the coding has on Stop/Start and Stability Systems, when a trailer is plugged in obviously.

Glad that is over!

Cheers
Simon

 

[Conal]

Hi Simon,
Well done, been following your fitting with interest and glad that you have got it all done. A good bit of luck getting it coded like that. I know a few people will be interested to know how well the cover fits and what it looks like when it's on. I've tried several times to access the new pictures that you've added but all I can find are the original ones, is it me?
Still not got the problem sorted with my electrics, the dealers have managed to find the part number for the lead that I should have been supplied with in the first place but as yet it has not turned up, not sure why it is taking so long. Not happy.
Conal

 

[Muddybum]

Hi Simon,
Well done, been following your fitting with interest and glad that you have got it all done. A good bit of luck getting it coded like that. I know a few people will be interested to know how well the cover fits and what it looks like when it's on. I've tried several times to access the new pictures that you've added but all I can find are the original ones, is it me?
Still not got the problem sorted with my electrics, the dealers have managed to find the part number for the lead that I should have been supplied with in the first place but as yet it has not turned up, not sure why it is taking so long. Not happy.
Conal

Hi Conal,
The cover I still have but never used, this was for two reasons...

1) It is black, not smooth and I thought would probably look pretty rubbish, it required a cut that left material on all 4 sides, an aperture if you will.
2) I went about the cut in a manner that was as little as possible, starting as low down as I could get away with and then gradually nibbling enough to get it where I wanted it. This didn't fit with the original blank at all.


The end result is ok but I would have been happier with it being lower down to be honest. I think probably the Westfalia isn't the perfect bar for this, perhaps the Thule or Witter may allow a lower cut, I have no way of knowing of course.

I will post up some pictures elsewhere, clearly Flickr is rubbish for sharing pictures, I find it anything but user friendly and I am no idiot.

NB: The coding machine the fitter used was a Westfalia own make one and had a guided install setup on the screens, idiot proof.

Cheers
Simon

 

[seatstu]

Hi Simon,

I got the electrics done in the end thanks to your advice.

I used the bumper cover but I have made a big mistake. I cut the bumper according to the supplied template instead of to the dimensions stated in the Westfalia book. The reason I did this is that the cover is sculpted to fit in the place that the template measurement states. As the bumper is curved and has a change of direction in it I didn't think it would fit very well if fitted as per the Westfalia instructions. I did measure against the towbar to make sure the Seat dimensions would clear everything and it did but I didn't measure with the towball fitted.....Doh! Basically the difference in the two sets of instructions is that the Seat template puts the cover 40mm further to the left of centre than the Westfalia instructions and now the bumper fouls on the the towball handle and it won't fit!!!

I now see it that I have two options, 1, Call Westfalia and ask them if the handle can be moved to the left of the towball instead of on the right. This would make everything work and I would still have room for the electrics. 2, send the Wesfalia bar back and buy the Seat one. This way the cutout I have will be in the right place to suit that bar.

I must say that this install has been a right pain in the arse and will be glad when it is all sorted. I'll have to make some phone calls on Monday to see what can be done.

The bumper cover does look good fitted and fits perfectly. I have a Phantom black car and the cover is smooth black also so doesn't really look out of place.

I also have an airbag error and light on the dash board. I had other warnings but these have gone after a quick drive around the block but the airbag one is still on.......

Cheers
Stu.

 

[Muddybum]

Hi Simon,

I got the electrics done in the end thanks to your advice.

I used the bumper cover but I have made a big mistake. I cut the bumper according to the supplied template instead of to the dimensions stated in the Westfalia book. The reason I did this is that the cover is sculpted to fit in the place that the template measurement states. As the bumper is curved and has a change of direction in it I didn't think it would fit very well if fitted as per the Westfalia instructions. I did measure against the towbar to make sure the Seat dimensions would clear everything and it did but I didn't measure with the towball fitted.....Doh! Basically the difference in the two sets of instructions is that the Seat template puts the cover 40mm further to the left of centre than the Westfalia instructions and now the bumper fouls on the the towball handle and it won't fit!!!

I now see it that I have two options, 1, Call Westfalia and ask them if the handle can be moved to the left of the towball instead of on the right. This would make everything work and I would still have room for the electrics. 2, send the Wesfalia bar back and buy the Seat one. This way the cutout I have will be in the right place to suit that bar.

I must say that this install has been a right pain in the arse and will be glad when it is all sorted. I'll have to make some phone calls on Monday to see what can be done.

The bumper cover does look good fitted and fits perfectly. I have a Phantom black car and the cover is smooth black also so doesn't really look out of place.

I also have an airbag error and light on the dash board. I had other warnings but these have gone after a quick drive around the block but the airbag one is still on.......

Cheers
Stu.

Hi Stu,
The fitter I mentioned who did my coding, was actually fitting the dealer supply bar. No I only had a quick look at ti but I noticed two things. Firstly I assumed it was a Wesfalia produced bar as the mounting system look identical. Secondly the mechanism for releasing the bar was different and didn't protrude as far out as my Westfalia bar, you may get away with this as a solution I guess? It may even be that the actual removable ball is the only part that is different.

I had no airbag errors, some things to check..

The airbag override plug that is in the glove box, did you disconnect it and did you put it back correctly?
Did you disturb any of the wiring to any of the seatbelt buckles?
Did you disturb any of the wiring to the dash airbag?

Good luck
Simon

 

[seatstu]

Hi Stu,
The fitter I mentioned who did my coding, was actually fitting the dealer supply bar. No I only had a quick look at ti but I noticed two things. Firstly I assumed it was a Wesfalia produced bar as the mounting system look identical. Secondly the mechanism for releasing the bar was different and didn't protrude as far out as my Westfalia bar, you may get away with this as a solution I guess? It may even be that the actual removable ball is the only part that is different.

I had no airbag errors, some things to check..

The airbag override plug that is in the glove box, did you disconnect it and did you put it back correctly?
Did you disturb any of the wiring to any of the seatbelt buckles?
Did you disturb any of the wiring to the dash airbag?

Good luck
Simon[/QUOTE

Thanks for the reply.

In the accessories book for the Leon the picture of the removable tow bar does show the release mechanism as a lever that runs along side the swan neck part of the tow ball. this also looks like it is outside of the bumper when fitted where as the Westfalia release knob would be inside the bumper when fitted and also you need room for the key aswell as you can't fit it without this, so hopefully the Seat one doesn't need such a big area to the right of centre.

I'll call Wesfalia in the morning and see what they say. Hopefully they will be able to tell me if they supply the standard Seat bar.

As for the airbag. I have connected the wiring to the airbag switch. If I turn the airbag off the light on the centre console comes on so the cable must be connected for it recognize this. One thing it may be is that I reconnected the battery while I had all of the glovebox out and the cable to the airbag switch disconnected. I then reconnected all the cables and installed the glovebox with the battery still connected so it may have thought there was a fault as the cable was disconnected when I reconnected the battery.
I didn't really disturb the airbag wiring just made sure it was out of the way before I installed the glovebox as there are a lot of wires that go to the back of the CD player.
I think I'll pop the car over to my mechanic friend who has a proper code reader and see if he can clear it.

 

[Muddybum]

The bar I saw was as you described it Stu, with the mechanism along the side of the swan neck.

I was careful to not repower the car with things not attached so that might well be your issue.

Cheers
Simon

 

[Muddybum]

Not sure if this will be any better, but I've uploaded the photos to Dropbox and they should be accessible here...

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hg0em7qa4cg3tgm/AAAgLG9YzX1SrLBuW-Uqh7zwa?dl=0&s=so

Cheers
Simon

 

[Conal]

That's great Simon thanks, very interesting. It certainly looks as though it was a big job, full respect to you.
Conal

 

[Muddybum]

That's great Simon thanks, very interesting. It certainly looks as though it was a big job, full respect to you.
Conal

No job too big, no pup too small.....

Oh hang on, think I'v been watching too much of my 5 year old daughter's TV.


It was a fair size job Conal, but the vast majority of the time was lost in not knowing how to get parts off without damaging them. A lot of time was spent figuring out the diagrams that came with the bar wiring too!

I reckon I could do the job in a day easily were I to start it from scratch right now.

Cheers
Simon

 

[TrivialT]

Help! I've almost finished thanks to this guide but I can't see how to see the back of the fuse box to do the last bit of wiring. I've unclipped the fuse box but can't get it into a position to see the back?

EDIT: Got there eventually, managed to turn it to the side just enough to see what I was doing. Saw some thread suggest poking a cable tie through the required terminal from the front, managed to attach the wire to this and drag back til more or less in position and just give it the final push through. Few errors once everything reconnected and battery on. Only front assist still on after a short drive. Now to read up to see if I can sort the coding using Carista dongle with Car Scanner Pro. Don't supose anyone has done this?