Komfort Blinker retrofit to the '75-'79 Bus

[tristessa]

So I did this three or four months ago, but I'm just now getting around to doing a writeup for posterity. What can I say, I typically lack motivation to toot my own horn.

My wife and I took a trip to Berlin back in May. When we were there, I noticed an interesting function in the taxis we rode in -- tap the turn signal arm up or down, and the corresponding signals will blink four times. Once we got home, I did some research and found that it's called "Komfortblinker" or "courtesy blinker". Near as I can tell it's a standard feature on all new cars in Europe (or at least Germany), and shows up on many new German cars in the US market as well. Not ever being in the market for new cars, I had no idea.

Thinking that it might be a handy thing to have, I looked at whether the Komfortblinker could be added to my Bus, which led me to a retrofit kit made by Volkswagen and intended for the 1997-2005 Golf IV and Passat B5 models. The kit is apparently available at the dealer, ECS Tuning carries it, mine came from Ebay.

There was no cutting of wires on the Bus. Some new connectors on the wiring of the kit, but after that it was damn near plug-and-play. Installation on '68-'74 should be similar but I'm not familiar with the wiring on those .. you're on your own.

You need:

VW P/N 000-998-229 A -- Komfortblinker Retrokit. Anywhere from $45-85 US:

Piggyback connectors, either style:

1/4" push-on crimp terminals, for 18-22ga wire:

They also make piggyback push-on terminals, which you could use instead of separate piggybacks & crimp terminals:

Open the box, you'll find a bit of wiring harness, a relay and a multi-language installation guide -- mine is in German, English, French, Italian and Spanish. The harness will look something like this picture I stole off the Internet:

Plug the relay into the socket (might as well), it only fits one way. Now get out your wire cutters and snip off the five wires where they go into the other black plastic connector, as far away from the relay as possible. Take the piece you cut off and throw it away, put it in the junk drawer .. whatever. We don't need it for this project.

Three wires (white, green and white/green) are going to piggyback onto your existing turn signal wiring at the hazard light switch, the other two (black/white and brown) are switched +12V and ground.

Strip the white, green, and white/green wires and crimp push-on (or piggyback push-on) terminals on each of them. Connect as follows:

White/Green piggybacks onto black/white/green, switch terminal #49A

White piggybacks onto black/white, terminal #49L

Green piggybacks onto black/green, terminal #49R

Black/white is switched power, which I piggybacked from the rear defroster wire -- the power requirement is minimal, and my rear defrost doesn't work anyway. The brown wire is ground; where it's grounded is irrelevant, but it should be a good, solid ground.

Find a place where you can secure the relay where it won't interfere with anything (heater levers, e-brake handle, etc) and zip-tie it in place so it doesn't rattle around. I strapped mine to the ashtray insert.

Video of this mod in action. No, the "left" indicator isn't blinking -- I'm only activating the "right" blinker.

Link


Hopefully this is of some use to someone somewhere. I've described where to hook each wire as clearly as I can, with DIN terminal numbers and everything .. which is probably a good thing, the pictures I took seem clear as mud to me, and I'm the one that took them.

[rustbus]

thats awesome

maybe someday

so you've wired your dash indicators separate? lucky!
_________________
May of '72 Deluxe. 2.0L L-Jet CS & 091 trans conversion
my Bus thread

[tristessa]

[Yondermtn]

The Hyundai that I'm renting has this feature. I'd never heard of it.