Up until now, I was using the below stereo controller glued onto the side of my steering column cover, below the windscreen wiper stalk (right hand side). This was from a 1999 – 2004 Land Rover Discovery 2. This is like a flappy paddle sort of thing and worked perfectly.
A popular steering wheel swap into a Prelude is from an S2000 or from a Civic or Integra Type-R. To purchase, these can be quite expensive. In comparison, these Accord steering wheels can be purchased for around £50. Of note, they are exactly the same diameter as the Prelude steering wheel.
Parts:
- Accord steering wheel with airbag (no jobby Sherlock),
- Accord cable reel,
- Accord cable loom which connects to cable reel,
- 5G Prelude cable reel (to be safe, I sourced a spare to avoid butchering my own).
Tools / supplies (in approximate order in which they’re required):
- Ratchet,
- 10mm socket,
- Philips screwdriver,
- T30 Torx screwdriver bit,
- 14mm socket,
- Breaker bar,
- Scissors,
- Wire strippers,
- Multimeter,
- Soldering iron & solder,
- Adhesive lined 3:1 heat shrink tubing,
- Heat gun,
- Insulated wire,
- Cable ties,
- File,
- Insulation tape,
- Stanley knife,
- Sandpaper,
- 2x male & female spade connectors,
- Crimping pliers,
- Torque wrench.
Instructions:
To get started, disconnect battery, remove steering column covers, remove airbag, disconnect plugs, remove steering wheel and remove cable reel. I won’t go into detail guiding you through how to remove these parts because it is straight forward and there are guides elsewhere on LG and the internet.
The Accord’s steering wheel boss (is that what it’s called?) doesn’t have the additional groove / notch for the Prelude’s 4WS sensor thingy so you’ll need to file one out.
Prelude steering wheel:
Accord steering wheel:
Simply copy the shape, size & position of the groove from the Prelude’s steering wheel to the Accord’s steering wheel. There’s a post on LG about fitting an S2000 steering wheel in a Prelude which also details this process.
The Accord cable reel’s airbag plug will not connect to the Prelude’s under dash wiring loom (different design / shape) so we need to replace it with the Prelude’s airbag plug. Cut off the yellow airbag plug from the Prelude’s cable reel and cut off the yellow airbag plug from the Accord’s cable reel, maybe half way along the 2 wires. Discard the Accord’s airbag plug and connect the Prelude’s airbag plug with attached wires to the Accord’s cable reel. I don’t know if polarity matters here, the wires are not labelled / marked differently and there’s no mention of polarity in the Honda workshop manual. However, I did make an effort to match up the plug terminals so they matched at both ends, better safe than sorry. Do a continuity test with a multimeter to confirm – left pin the left pin, right pin to right pin. The Honda workshop manual says that no one should mess with SRS wiring. If there’s a fault, replace it, don’t fix it. This obviously put me on edge when carrying out this modification. After some internet research I learnt that it is possible, but precautions should be taken. It was recommended to make the join air tight, so no moisture gets in. So instead of crimping on butt connectors which I usually use for joining wires, heat shrink was recommended. I twisted the wires together, strengthened the join by using a tiny bit of solder then sealed them with adhesive lined 3:1 heat shrink tubing.
A continuity test confirmed it to be working. This was my first time using heat shrink tubing and a heat gun, I’m quite impressed. Finally, slide on a length of split corrugated wiring loom sleeve for extra protection and to make it look prettier. Am I the only one who thinks that a butt connector sounds like a double ended sex toy?
Now to join the Prelude’s cable reel plug to the Accord’s cable wiring loom which connects into the back of the Accord’s cable reel. This will allow the Accord’s wiring loom with cable reel to plug into the Prelude’s under dash wiring loom. Disassemble the Prelude’s cable reel, we just need the plug which comes out the back along with the remainder of the airbag wiring. On appearances, it looks like it’s moulded in, but it does come out.
Pry off the two plastic round things / rivets, remove the small panel, slide out the male plug (4 pin + 2 wire airbag cable) and cut the white ribbon cable as close to the plug as you can.
Pry open the plug, the black over clips on and off.
Solder 5 of the Accord’s wiring loom wires to 5 terminals on the Prelude plug as per the diagram below.
Accord cable loom’s white plug:
Prelude cable reel plug:
1 Resume / accelerate
2 Set / decelerate
3 On/off
4 On/off
5 SWC
6 GND
7 Horn
Keep in mind, you’ll be soldering wires to the pins with the plug upside down.
The airbag wiring coming off the side of the Prelude cable reel plug is being repurposed as stereo controls (SWC & GND). I made the mistake of cutting off the Prelude cable reel’s airbag wires right at the plug, rather than leaving spare wiring, so I later had to solder two wires on to the plug.
Both the Accord’s stereo control buttons and cruise control buttons have their individual ground wires within the steering wheel housing but only one ground wire comes out the back of the Accord’s cable reel so I assume they’re joined inside the cable reel. 8 wires go in to the Accord’s cable reel from the steering wheel side and 7 wires come out the back. As individual grounds for both the stereo controls and cruise control are required, an additional wire is needed to connect to the cruise control ground wire and create a new ground for the stereo controls. So connect wire 6 of the Accord’s wiring loom to 2 separate pins on the Prelude plug as per the diagram which will supply the ground for both stereo controls and cruise control. To do this, strip off a few mm of insulation from the wire and wrap the end of a spare wire around the exposed section. This splits the ground into two, like a Y connection. Secure it with either solder and heat shrink tubing or simply cut the wire and crimp on terminal connectors of some sorts. Connect the other end of the spare wire to the other ground on the Prelude plug (next to SWC).
The Accord’s cruise control on/off button is left disconnected (wires 3 & 4). I gave it some thought and realised it would be redundant. The Prelude already has a master cruise control button by the sunroof and fog light(s) buttons, so I assume if one is switched off, the other won’t have any effect? Can’t see much point of having two on/off buttons doing the same thing so I left it disconnected but kept ample wiring there in case I wanted to wire up the button to something else one day in the future. The 2 spare wires are folded up and held together neatly with a couple of cables ties. Any suggestions what the now spare on/off button could be wired to? Clip back on the black plastic plug cover. You might need to use a nail file to file away some of the solder if you’ve gone a bit OTT with the soldering. I filed the solder down a bit to make it flat and wrapped a small cable tie around the plug & its cover for good measure.
I originally got the wiring wrong hence why I had to cut the wires half way then re-join. In retrospect, I think I might have originally got the sequence of wires correct, I just got the Prelude plug back-to-front, but I’ll never know because I started fiddling when it didn’t originally work. To get the wiring to then work correctly took experimentation by trying different combinations - disconnecting and reconnecting the wires using crimped on spade terminals and testing for continuity with my multimeter. Once I confirmed it all to be working correctly, I removed the spade terminals along with surplus wiring and joined the wires permanently using the same process I used with the airbag wiring (solder and heat shrink tubing).
However, as I have identified which wires goes to where, this shouldn’t be required, but if you do mess up, butt connectors will suffice for this if you prefer. After a test drive confirmed it all to be working, I removed the wire labels I had put on temporarily.
The Accord’s cable reel is larger than the Prelude’s cable reel so the area where it mounts onto the combination switch assembly needs a tiny bit of modification. Clip off the top thin plastic projection off of the Accord’s cable reel (I ended up removing it all rather than just half shown in that pic).
File off the two diagonal strengthening supports to the right hand side of the projecting left screw hole.
The Accord’s cable reel should now mount flush. The Prelude’s cable reel was secured by 3 or 4 screws but the Accord’s screw holes do not match so can’t be used. It’s a rather snug fit and once in position, it is impossible to rotate the stationary half of the cable reel but it can come loose and move away from the combination switch assembly. I secured it in place with double sided trim fixing tape abound the outside edge and insulation tape over the combination switch assembly’s screw holes. Also a short length of insulation tape laid on the cable reel top surface overlapping to the top surface of the combination switch assembly.
The steering column covers do fit over the Accord’s cable reel, but there is no gap at all with the top half so I’ve modified the top steering column cover the make more room. There’s a small lip that goes around the semi-circular hole. I removed that using a Stanley knife (was a Draper to be precise). It’s only about 1-2 mm but is enough clearance. To do this, I repeatedly scored around the outside of the lip before carving off the lip with the Stanley knife. I then smoothed it off with sandpaper.
Connect the custom hybrid wiring loom into the back of the Accord cable reel, connect the newly joined Prelude airbag plug to the Prelude’s under dash airbag plug and connect the newly soldered custom Prelude cruise control / horn / stereo control male plug to the black & yellow 4-pin female plug under the dash. It is possible to connect it the wrong way around, so make sure the colours on top and bottom match - black to black (top) & yellow to yellow (bottom). Connect the two stereo controller wires (SWC & GND) to your stereo’s wiring. Personally I use spade connectors for this.
Install the Accord steering wheel using a torque wrench, connect the steering wheel plug to the Accord’s cable reel, install airbag housing and connect its airbag & horn plugs (they both have a separate compartment tucked away at the back), re-fit steering column covers and finally re-connect the battery while crossing your fingers.
This is before:
Here’s the finished product:
The plastic around my buttons is a custom finish. I purchased my steering wheel through eBay, I think the seller intended to fit it to a Civic. If you look at 7th generation Accord steering wheels, you’ll notice that the silver surround of the controllers is often worn / faded where thumbs have been making contact. The previous owner applied a silvery grey brushed aluminium effect vinyl wrap which I’m very happy with.
So to sum up:
1) Remove parts,
2) Connect 2x Prelude plugs to the Accord’s cable loom & cable reel,
3) Modify combination switch mounting surface and top steering column cover,
4) Install parts.
I should point out that it would have been easier for me to connect the Accord’s wiring loom directly to the Prelude’s wiring loom by cutting off the Prelude’s yellow & black plug (under the dash) then join the wires to the Accord’s wires using butt connectors or spade connectors. However, as I don’t think anyone has actually done this before, there was no guarantee this would work so I wanted to avoid butchering my Prelude’s wiring, allowing me to revert back to stock if my project proved unsuccessful. To do this I had to make a custom hybrid Accord -> Prelude wiring loom. There was a guy in Poland who was making enquiries about this swap back in 2010 but my half-hearted attempt to contact him for advice didn’t work out. So I do not know if anyone has actually done this successfully until now.
