Retrofitting Rain Sensor wipers - Success

[Canonite]

I'd never thought of doing this but as I like the auto dipping mirror I decided to source one. When it arrived I was surprised to see it had the cowling from a rain sensor and unpacking it further it still had the prism too which had been removed from the cars screen.

Note my car is a standard windscreen and I have not changed it, ive done this on a standard windscreen. It is also not necessary to buy a new interior mirror as you just need the plastic cowling to house the sensor itself. The interior mirror and rain sensor are wired seperately so you can add the wiring as you wish.

Having experience in wiring in the auto dipping mirror I decided to look at my A pillar plug to check if wiring was present on the car side of the harness and sure enough it was all there. So...here goes...

Pending a check of your cars wiring in the dash side A pillar plug, you'll need the following items to complete this install:

1) Auto Dip Mirror/Sensor Cowlings - (P/N: CTN100040PMJ + CTN100050PMJ)


2) Rain Sensor ECU - (P/N: YDB105430)


3) Rain Sensor Prism (see mounted to ECU)


4) 3M Adhesive Gel Pad. This bonds the sensor prism to the screen. I bought mine from eBay for £5.

5) T4 session, this is to alter the ZCS coding to tell the BCU that when intermittent wipe is selected from the stalk....the sensor prism dictates the delay of the wipe based in its readings from the rain on the screen.

These are the plugs I got with my mirror, the large block one is for the auto dipping mirror and the small this one is for the rain sensor. As both are added together the mirror and sensor share the Earth wire and also the Yellow/White wire.


Mirror Plug with the three wires:

Rain Sensor plug with the four wires:


This is the A pillar plug in my car, I need to simply add the 7 wires from the above two plugs into this one.


I was struggling to find the correct pin placements as the wiring diagrams I found are for the earier black A pillar plug, whereas mine were white.
Fortunately I found that Reebs had updated the How To for the auto dipping mirror and showed this photo comparing his standard roof harness on the right to the one he got from a donor car on the left that had rain sensing wipers fitted.

The Rave disc wiring diagrams showed the wiring colours to be the same so I now extended the loom from my mirror to match the wiring I needed for my mirror and rain sensor to the one in Reebs' photo.

So I found a car in the breakers with the same white A pillar plug, I needed the pins from it so I could add them to the existing wiring properly to minimise any splicing. (ignore the colours of the wiring in this photo, I used the 0.5g wiring I had in my box of tricks).

Once I'd done that I added the pins to my roof harness.


Below are the pin placements from both the rain sensor and mirror, going to the roof harness plug into the A pillar plug in the dash. Remember the white/yellow wire and the earth wire is shared. So Pin 1 from the rain sensor is spliced with Pin 3 from the mirror.....which then goes to Pin 11 on the A pillar plug.
And Pin 2 from the rain sensor is spliced with Pin 10 from the mirror....which then goes to Pin 3 on the A pillar plug.

Rain Sensor:
Pin 1 - (White/Yellow) - Pin 11
Pin 2 - (Black...Earth) - Pin 3
Pin 3 - (White/Red/Yellow) - Pin 9
Pin 4 - (Brown/LightGreen) - Pin 10

Auto Dip Mirror:
Pin 1 - (Green/Brown) - Pin 12
Pin 3 - (White/Yellow) - Pin 11
Pin 10 - (Black...Earth) - Pin 3

Once complete I took the car to Bigruss who did some alterations to the ZCS coding. Flicked the stalk to intermittent....left it doing nothing for a minute or two then squirted some glass cleaner on it from a spray bottle and the wipers activated and cleared the screen.

Success!

So you dont need to buy a rain sensor screen, the only difference is that the rain sensor screen comes with the sensor prism pre-bonded to it with the blackout area.~
I am simply going to apply some automotive glass tint for an OEM look.

EDIT:
So my plan to add automotive tint seemed a good idea, but in practice it looks a bit naff. Couldn't seem to get the 3M pad to bond correctly to both parts. Fitted it to the glass first adding water and then to the prism but just got air bubbles. Tried again with a second 3M pad this time bonding to the prism first, no bubbles at all but then couldn't get it to bond to the glass without trapping air.
Maybe my technique is rubbish but here's a few photos for those who were curious. The rain sensors do work perfectly mind, very nice thing to have on the car.

Stencil Made Of The Cowling


95% Limo Black Automotive Tint cutout


Fitted with bonus air bubbles:


I'm going to do the tint again, maybe try to bond the prism to the glass without the ECU

[dadragon]

canonite, well done fella, clever stuff!!. I already have rain sensors in mine but if I hadn't I would have fitted them, this is a big help
Regards DaDragon

[Bolin]

Nice work Alan. I'm halfway through this ,yself, got the ZCS done ages ago, fitted the cowling and the sensor ECU, wiring was already in place. Got an adhesive pad, just need a prism and black-out material.

Worth pointing out that in your photos, the prism and the ECU are shown together - they are two separate parts held by two clips which pull out from the ECU. The prism comes bonded to a new screen, but the ECU doesn't.

[Canonite]

Originally Posted by Bolin

Nice work Alan. I'm halfway through this ,yself, got the ZCS done ages ago, fitted the cowling and the sensor ECU, wiring was already in place. Got an adhesive pad, just need a prism and black-out material.

Worth pointing out that in your photos, the prism and the ECU are shown together - they are two separate parts held by two clips which pull out from the ECU. The prism comes bonded to a new screen, but the ECU doesn't.

Good point, mine came with prism fitted to the ECU already

[pab]

You can fit them anytime for me Alan.

Russ nailed the dipping rear mirror on and noticed not even the reverse light pin was in my connection block. Made a nice roof loom for me though.

[Canonite]

Originally Posted by pab

You can fit them anytime for me Alan.

Russ nailed the dipping rear mirror on and noticed not even the reverse light pin was in my connection block. Made a nice roof loom for me though.

I reckon its an entirely different affair if there's no wiring for it in the dash plug :/

[Reebs]

Excellent work Alan, I'd be interested to see what the final appearance is like once bonded to a non rain sensing window glass.

I have copied your post and placed it in the How To - Car Interior section for future reference Here

Many thanks

[trikey]

Originally Posted by Canonite

I reckon its an entirely different affair if there's no wiring for it in the dash plug :/

Just fitted this for a member on here, unfortunately the wiring is not present in the White plug

Does anyone have a wiring diagram for this plug before I have to scour the rave disc!

[versus]

nice work! well done!

[Canonite]

Originally Posted by Reebs

Excellent work Alan, I'd be interested to see what the final appearance is like once bonded to a non rain sensing window glass.

I have copied your post and placed it in the How To - Car Interior section for future reference Here

Many thanks

Few paltry images added, gonna do it again

Originally Posted by trikey

Just fitted this for a member on here, unfortunately the wiring is not present in the White plug
Does anyone have a wiring diagram for this plug before I have to scour the rave disc!

I could only find wiring for the black plug on the rave disc, hence why I used Reebs' photo above for reference. The wiring colours are the same but pin placements are different. I have noticed though, wired in as above I dont have the disabling function on the mirror when reverse gear is selected.