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Okay, update. Turns out I didn't have 2 screws left over - they were from my original Clock Spring to connect it to the car. Phew. Here's the lowdown on the steering angle sensor:
- I took off the steering angle sensor and was wondering how I could have got it wrong - there's only one way to fit it (the screws make sure of that)
- I remembered what @Z33Garage said about aligning the 'tabs' so I thought I'd have a look at the video again
- The steering angle sensor actually has moving parts even when it's all fixed in. This means:
if you turn the moving part on the angle sensor at all when changing the steering angle sensor - it's going to be almost impossible to align it back to exactly where it is
Once I turned it, I had no idea where 0' was so I've got no hope of re-aligning it - I'll have to get the angle reset to 0'c via a Nissan Consult or something similar. Luckily, my garage is pretty friendly and will do this for free probably.
You might be able to figure out a way to ensure it aligns perfectly to what it was previously but because there are no hard alignment pieces, you'll have to be 100% sure that your new clock spring is aligned in the same way the old one was and that you don't spin the sensor at all. To be fair, if you reattach the wheel to exactly where it was (not hard) then in theory it should all be the same as long as you don't manually turn the internal bit of the sensor. I just didn't know what I was doing. Here's a video of me showing/explaining this:
Next steps:
- My battery is flat again so I need to charge it up again
- Then, I'll make sure the air bag light is still cleared / reset again if needed
- I'm going to use my OBDII scanner to see if I can see what the steering wheel thinks its angle is - hopefully it'll be way out
Okay, update. Turns out I didn't have 2 screws left over - they were from my original Clock Spring to connect it to the car. Phew. Here's the lowdown on the steering angle sensor:
- I took off the steering angle sensor and was wondering how I could have got it wrong - there's only one way to fit it (the screws make sure of that)
- I remembered what @Z33Garage said about aligning the 'tabs' so I thought I'd have a look at the video again
- The steering angle sensor actually has moving parts even when it's all fixed in. This means:
if you turn the moving part on the angle sensor at all when changing the steering angle sensor - it's going to be almost impossible to align it back to exactly where it is
Once I turned it, I had no idea where 0' was so I've got no hope of re-aligning it - I'll have to get the angle reset to 0'c via a Nissan Consult or something similar. Luckily, my garage is pretty friendly and will do this for free probably.
You might be able to figure out a way to ensure it aligns perfectly to what it was previously but because there are no hard alignment pieces, you'll have to be 100% sure that your new clock spring is aligned in the same way the old one was and that you don't spin the sensor at all. To be fair, if you reattach the wheel to exactly where it was (not hard) then in theory it should all be the same as long as you don't manually turn the internal bit of the sensor. I just didn't know what I was doing. Here's a video of me showing/explaining this:
Next steps:
- My battery is flat again so I need to charge it up again
- Then, I'll make sure the air bag light is still cleared / reset again if needed
- I'm going to use my OBDII scanner to see if I can see what the steering wheel thinks its angle is - hopefully it'll be way out
Will post when all hopefully fixed.
Okay, good news is that the air bag light has gone for good so clearly the clock spring was the issue/is fine now.
Now, the TCS etc was still going haywire even after my local garage apparently reset the SAS (Steering Angle Sensor). However, they did say they couldn't read the angle which makes me think that either (a) it's broken (I doubt this - I've just swapped it between Clock Springs and they're solid) or (b) their OBD tool isn't quite compatible with the 350z.
I tried downloading Nissan Data Scan II for Android but don't bother as it's just not got the right stuff to work via an Bluetooth OBD2 scanner - the "Work Support" feature can't access the ABS module (which reads the SAS).
If you have a Windows laptop I'm sure you could download the proper Nissan Data Scanner software but I read a lot of good things about the Foxwell NT650 handheld OBD2 tool and people using that to clear codes. I found one of those for £125 online so rather than a one-off hit with Nissan of £56 (plus driving there and back etc) I thought I'd be better off giving it a go with that and I'll have this nice device which will help me in the future too:
Weird thing is, I was pretty vigorous with the car and I couldn't get the VDC to go off for ages. Then, when it did go off it didn't actually kick in - the yellow lights just turned on.
Anyway, will post back in a week or so once I've got this bad boy and hopefully I can resolve the issue myself.
Last edited by Rajtastic; Feb 4, 2020 at 10:23 AM.
OK, got the excellent Foxwell NT650 Elite and just like my garage said - they can reset the alignment but there is no reading coming from the steering angle sensor I need to open it up again and check all of the connections etc (luckily, a second hand SAS (47945-AS500 part number) shows up cheap on eBay - £60).
@Z33Garage - when you swapped over your steering angle sensor - you don't happen to remember if the two angle sensor's movement was locked to the clock spring's rotation in any way? As per my video above, mine seems to be moving independently which makes me think that it's maybe reading but not fitted correctly? I don't know. Will pull out my clock spring again and compare how it fits between the two clock springs but if you happen to remember that would be most useful!
OK, turns out I wasn't thorough enough. Torqen (who are usually excellent) had guaranteed that the 25567-ET025 would fit my '06 DE RevUp. Unfortunately, I've done a side by side comparison and I can see the new clock spring has a much wider diameter in the centre - it's no wonder the SAS was rotating freely by itself:
Update:
- Torqen are awesome. Said they'd call Nissan JP and refund if any issues.
- I put in my old clockspring (now my MOT has passed) and just disconnected air bag for time being
- The Foxwell NT650 Elite is really good too. I can read the live steering angle properly and reset it correctly too
Will post once I've got the right clockspring and fitted with my learnings for newcomers.
Yeah I think you are correct in thinking the diameter. I called Zspeed Perf to get mine and they requested my Vin number to verify it would fit. I did this because I had heard there were isssues if one did not order the correct matching part.
Yeah I think you are correct in thinking the diameter. I called Zspeed Perf to get mine and they requested my Vin number to verify it would fit. I did this because I had heard there were isssues if one did not order the correct matching part.
Yeah spot on. Torquen confirmed with Nissan its not the right one. I don't get how this one would ever fit a Z because the SAS seems like the same part no (same as yours). We're confused but at least it's known now
Update:
- Torqen are awesome. Said they'd call Nissan JP and refund if any issues.
- I put in my old clockspring (now my MOT has passed) and just disconnected air bag for time being
- The Foxwell NT650 Elite is really good too. I can read the live steering angle properly and reset it correctly too
Will post once I've got the right clockspring and fitted with my learnings for newcomers.
OK, closing this one off. Correct Clock Spring from Nissan (B5567-CF42E) worked perfectly. Also used my Foxwell NT650 to reset the steering angle sensor (just to be sure) but technically, if you keep the clock spring in the same position you left the old one in - you shouldn't need to do a Steering Angle Sensor (SAS) reset.
Okay, so probably some good learnings for future forum members having the same issues. Here's what I did to debug:
- Firstly, my garage are v friendly so pulled the actual air bag error code for me - it was this one (FYI you can't clear it in any other way than self-diagnostic ignition method (www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5UQIF3Euu0)*):
It was B1052 which confirms an issue with the driver air bag. I should focus there probably.
*BTW this procedure is exactly documented in the Nissan SRS manual - it's:
- turn on the ignition until air bag light disappears then turn it off immediately (i.e. before it flashes on again)
- wait at least 3 seconds
- repeat 2 more times
- Turn on the ignition
- I took my old clock spring and used a multi-meter to test whether the continuity was blown between the airbag plug connections (both the orange + yellow ones)
- I found that only 1 of the 4 prongs (2 on yellow, two on orange) was outputting to one of the pins on the opposite side of the clock spring (after all, if the airbag connector doesn't go through the clock spring - its not doing its job)
- I then took out the newly installed clock spring to check I hadn't broken it (using the Nissan plastic clip** which came with it to fix the clock spring in place)
- I then stuck a tiny screwdriver into the new clock spring air bag connections (all 4 on the yellow + orange connectors) one at a time and then tested to see if the signal went through to any of the pins
- I also noted which pins the yellow connector went through to and which ones the orange ones went to (my air bag only has two pins on it so I was curious to see whether for some reason had a clock spring routing the air bag through to the wrong pins). Here is the result:
**I agree with the principal of never use winding the clockspring - fully left, fully right and then half way - to calculate the centre point. It comes already in the middle with a plastic fitting to hold it in place until you fit it. Winding it seems to tempt fate of stretching the cables so I don't see the value
- All four of the pins routed through correctly so I knew there was no problem with my clock spring
- I then went to the car and noted down what the air bag cable in the car going into the clock spring (not between the clock spring and the air bag - from the car to the clock spring, i.e. to air bag module which tells the car if there's an issue or not) was doing, i.e. which pins on the clock spring was that yellow car-side plug using? As you can see in the picture above (top-right) the car plug was using the same pins as the yellow air bag connector was routing through to. This way, I knew that I had the right clock spring and that the yellow air bag connector is definitely the one to go through to the air bag (I know its all colour coded in yellow so it shouldn't be the orange one - but it's nice to confirm exactly what's going on)
Next:
- Now I know the clock spring is routing correctly, I bought an air bag resistor from eBay to just see whether plugging that into the clock spring instead of the air bag would work (I wasn't expecting much but if it did work - it points to a problem with the air bag itself):
- I reconnected everything except for the air bag (inc the electrics) and switched to user-diagnostic mode (using the the self-diagnostic mode). If there was still an issue, it'd show me the error code (1 long + 2 shorts - i.e. driver air bag module issue).
- Hey presto - code cleared!
- Next, I thought it must be the air bag so a £60 second-hand one should do the trick. But first, I got the air bag out again just to check it over.
- I noticed that the black click'y bit on the connector plug was still sticking out
- I disconnected the air bag connector and tried to push that bit in - wouldn't budge
- So, I thought I'll just reconnect it and push it in hard - boom...it clicked in!
After that, reconnected everything and tried self-diagnostic mode again and it's cleared!
I thought I'd share that as a nice way to logically try and solve issues.
Next up...the traction control is totally hay-wire (even though I know the wheel/clock spring is definitely aligned correctly. Turns out that the bit you take off the old clock spring and reattach to the new one is the steering wheel angle sensor:
Definitely don't want to be buying another one of those! I was sure I reconnected it correctly but I reckon I must have done something stupid so back to re-opening the whole thing to check it's all connected properly! I do have 2 screws left over from the job and they definitely should be in there somewhere!
I'll report back with my findings. Hopefully, either I've connected it wrong and it'll work OR I connected it fine and the angle needs resetting by my garage.
@Rajtastic would it be possible that the clockspring was faulty even though the horn and steering wheel controls work? Did you lose your horn and steering wheel controls? I'm chasing down a similar issue with a code 1 long & 2 short. Swapping a different airbag doesn't fix the issue... but my horn and steering controls work... Is there anyway I can test the clockspring without removing it??
@Rajtastic would it be possible that the clockspring was faulty even though the horn and steering wheel controls work? Did you lose your horn and steering wheel controls? I'm chasing down a similar issue with a code 1 long & 2 short. Swapping a different airbag doesn't fix the issue... but my horn and steering controls work... Is there anyway I can test the clockspring without removing it??
Sorry to hear your pain mate. My horn was okay but the first thing to go was one of my volume controls. Technically, it's possible for everything to work except one thing - they're all just wires being routed through the clockspring.
In theory, you don't have to take the whole clock spring out the test - you could use a multi-meter to track the airbag pins which you see going into the airbag and then test the relevant connector going into the clock spring (I think probably a yellow one underneath the clock spring if I remember right). However, you're pretty much the whole way to getting your clock spring out so you may as well just take it out and test it properly with a multi-meter (once you've taken the clock spring out a couple of times you can do it pretty fast : ) ).
I need to open it up again and check all of the connections etc (luckily, a second hand SAS (47945-AS500 part number) shows up cheap on eBay - £60).
