PDC Retrofit Question

[Cuzoe]

This... Mixed a little bit at a time, and had to prop the bumper up against the wall to get epoxy the fender sensors. Either that or you will have to let it set a little bit before applying it in those spots but it gets pretty thick after 6-7 minutes.

You probably only need one since you're only doing the front bumper but they're not expensive and it's kind of nice to have some around. I bought three but used two. And as you can see I was lazy and didn't tape anything off, haha.

 

[Fraysa]

Thanks @Cuzoe!

I’ll update once I have the front bumper ready.

Mind also posting the eBay link for the kit you purchase? I'd like to purchase one for myself for future projects as there really isn't any benefit with using the genuine Skoda tool.

 

[Cuzoe]

The kit I linked to on Amazon is the exact kit I found on eBay. The tool kit part number is GAT-PSHM-500. I happened to find someone a selling a used on eBay so I didn't pay full price but everything I see on eBay now is new and the same or more expensive than ordering from Amazon.

Also, did the wiring checks on the harness and sure enough, wired to be connected on the left side of the vehicle. Stupid and annoying. The left side of the car is no easier to run than the right side, imo, and the spot for the speaker to mount is on the right anyway. I suppose they expect that if you're buying their harness that you're also following their PDF but still, uggghhhh. I re-pinned at the PDC module connector.

 

[Fraysa]

Told you it's on the left side.

Glad to hear you got it repinned and working to your satisfaction! Did you manage to connect everything yet?

 

[Cuzoe]

Yea, everything for PLA is connected but my car is in not in a state to be turned on, haha. Currently installing ACC, motion sense alarm, blind spot monitoring, DCC, heated seats, fog lights, and ACC, 46 pin ABS. I think that's it... and I'm going to finish sound deadening the whole car.

 

[Fraysa]

Oh shit, haha. That's a lot of work, good for you man! It looks so cool when you have a garage and you can work on your car like that.


Maybe it's worth asking you since you already done it - do you know what I need to take out the seatbelt bolt? I need to replace mine. Looks like a Spline bit but I'm not too sure on the size.

 

[Fraysa]

@Cuzoe I need your help with two issues.

1. I'd also like to move the harness to the right side, just so I can tie it to the license plate light harness and make one big, stable harness. Can you share your process about the repinning process on the PDC module? What pin numbers go where, what tools did you use, etc?

2. Unfortunately my license plate harness fell off. I saw it has clips but I'm not sure how it clips to the bumper. If you can shed some light on this, as well as how you managed to fit it with the PDC harness, that'd be awesome.

3. Please reply to my question above the seatbelt buckle ^_^ .

 

[Cuzoe]

I'll get pictures of the harnesses coming through the floor in the back of the car when I get home. As for the seat belt... I have a set of triple squares like this. I don't see the exact kit I bought, it was a few years ago, but any of the similar kits will work. I don't remember exactly what size it is for the seat belt bolt but this is a good kit to have the car anyway. If you're going to do suspension work at some point you might want to get a set of triple square "impact" bits. But a kit like the one I linked will handle everything else.

A page or two back on Post 115 the pictures show the routing of the license plate harness.

I'll edit this post with the wiring diagram, but I switched the pins at the PDC module connector. You'll be switching three sets of 2 pins, so 6 wires in total.

 

[Fraysa]

Hmm, interesting. So the way I see it you zip tied the harness to the license plate lights harness, which was already mounted.

I have a few more questions:

1. Where did you tuck in the excess wire from the PDC harness?
2. Where did you make the connection from the bumper to the rear for the PDC? Inside the vehicle or at the bumper? Like, where does the actual connector reside?
3. I assume you had to cut a hole to fit the PDC wiring harness through the rubber/plastic grommet. Did you use any silicone material to cover it back up? That's something I still need to do.

Please post the pin re-assigments as soon as you can, as I'd like to do the same.

 

[Fraysa]

Another question. How did you remove the harness for the license plates from the car? I noticed there are two connections at the actual license plate module on the bumper but I fdidnt see the “main” connector.

 

[Cuzoe]

1) I started my wire run from the back of the car. I have it laying in the driver footwell now so I have not dealt with excess wire, although there doesn't seem to be very much.

2) Connection is made at the bumper, right beside the connection for the license plate lights. If you make the connection in the vehicle you would not be able to remove the bumper without removing interior trim.

3) Yes I cut the a slit in the grommet that allowed me to add my harnesses (I have 3 harnesses here now... the existing license plate and two added for PDC and blind spot monitoring sensor). Proper thing would have been to de-pin but my cheap connector tools didn't work. I used self-fusing silicone tape on the outside to wrap the harnesses near the grommet. The tape comes up to the grommet so I'm not going to add any additional silicone. As long as you make a clean cut the grommet fits and stays in the hole perfectly fine. In fact it's a bit tighter now since it has more harnesses going through it.

The license plate harness connects on the right side of the bumper. If you look at my rear bumper pictures where I zip tied the PDC harness to the license plate light harness you'll see two connectors... one for the sensors and one for the license plates. I didn't remove the license plate harness, just disconnected it so I could remove the bumper.

I switched pins at the connector module... switched the following on the 26 pins connector
8 (G717) & 19 (G716) - Parallel Park Sensors
6 (G203) & 21 (G206) - Rear Park Sensors
7 (G205) & 20 (G205) - Rear Center Park Sensors

 

[Fraysa]

Thanks a lot for this.
I still don’t get #2 though. In your picture where you show the rear bumper, it seems like the harness for the license plates is mounted on your bumper yet the bumper is not attached to the car. I’ve only see the connectors for the right/left side coming from that harness, meaning you can’t remove the harness from the car.

 

[Cuzoe]

We might be confusing things. If we consider there's a car side harness and a bumper side harness it might be easier. The connection point between the two is on the rear right outside of the main body of the car but "inside" the bumper. After the bumper was unclipped I held it up so that I could disconnect the license plate harness.

Unless your car is different I'm thinking that maybe you didn't notice that connector and instead removed the license plate bumper harness from the bumper to allow you to pull the bumper off.

For the PDC the bumper side harness has the six connectors for each sensor and then one big connector that goes to the car. For the license plate bumper harness there are two connectors (for each light) and then a bigger connector that goes to the car. In my picture both of those bigger connectors are right beside each other. If you're going to remove the bumper you have to disconnect both of those.

Both of the vehicle side harnesses (for PDC and for the license plate lights) come out of the vehicle through the rubber grommet that is on the floor behind the trim on the back right corner of the car. This grommet already had the license plate light harness coming out of it, which had to be disconnected to remove the bumper. I added the PDC harness by cutting a slit in that grommet.

In other words, when the rear bumper is removed the license plate harness comes off with it. And now both the license plate and PDC harness will come off with it.

 

[Fraysa]

Yep, this is it. I actually never realized there was a “big” connector for the license plate lights!

I think I’m going to remove my bumper to do some tidying up on the rear. Need to mount back the harness and put some JBWeld on those plastic holders.

 

[Cuzoe]

Hopefully these pictures clear up some of what we've been talking about. I now have 3 harness coming through the grommet on the right side of the rear hatch floor.

This is inside, you can sort of see where I cut the grommet. If my cheap amazon connector tools had worked I would have depinned each connector to feed the wires through, but they didn't so here we are. I may put some clear silicone along the cut I made but I'm not concerned about it moving. It's now in there pretty good since there are more harnesses going through it.

Next is the lower side of that grommet, this is "inside" the rear bumper. Both the license plate and PDC sensor harness would be disconnected here, after unsecuring but before completely removing the bumper.

These are the connections in that area. The one that is secured to the frame is the door the licence plate lights (existing). The loose one is for the parking sensors. The third is connected to the blind spot monitor. I'm not entirely sure how this harness should have been run but I took it inside the car, across the hatch and then out the opposite side grommet. Good morning spot monitors stay on the vehicle when the bumper comes off so it didn't make sense (to me) to attach that harness to the bumper or run it on the outside even though it's long enough.

In service of the unnecessary, all these zipties will be replaced with black ones, haha.