Swift steering wheel into the Jimny

While the Jimny steering wheel (at least in upper specification models) is alright, sometimes a change is all you need to make the car feel different.

There are lots of fancy options here, but I’ve gone for the simplest: Swift steering wheel. With the right wheel selection (which I did drunkenly on ebay one Saturday at midnight after getting home from the pub, purely based on pictures) it is 100% compatible and a 5 minute mod.

I’m not fantastic at my Swift models but you want the steering wheel that looks a bit like the Jimny’s. I think this is the AZ model code, so early 2017 onwards. One note is that Swift Sports come with paddle shift transmissions and those paddles will not work with the Jimny. Since they will also add complexity to the steering wheel controls on the wheels I also can’t guarantee other functions will work.

5 door Jimnys (and presumably 3 doors when the 2026 revision models are released) could use the version with the autonomous cruise control functions on the steering wheel, but again I can’t vouch for this as I don’t have a car with autonomous cruise control.

Sections

Getting access to the steering wheel nut

Step 0 of doing this mod is to disconnect the negative terminal on the battery for at least 30 minutes. This makes sure no modules have any residual power and disables the airbag system so you don’t have a powerful explosive going off in your hand.

If nothing else, doing this step stops you tooting the horn 8 times as you fight the airbag retainer clips.

The Jimny has 3 access ports to get to the airbag retainer clips. One is each side of the steering wheel, and one is to the left of the lower spoke. These give you access to wire clips that you have to push with a flat-bladed screwdriver to release the airbag pins.

The access holes look like this:

To give you an idea on what you’re pushing, this is how they work with a wheel off the car and viewed from the back.

When you push the screwdriver in, you push the wire piece out from the airbag tab which is spring loaded and disengages.

You do this to all 3 clips and then the airbag will be unseated but still mostly sitting in the steering wheel. If you struggle to find the clips, shine a bright torch into the steering wheel interior to allow you to see the wire clip to more easily work out the angle to push the screwdriver.

Make sure you have released all 3 clips before you try to lift the airbag away though, when it is fully released it will come away very easily. At this point you have access to do the steps to actually remove the steering wheel.

With the airbag removed from the wheel you can lift it up a bit and you’ll see two wires running to it: A bare black wire with an uninsulated spade connector on it, and, a yellow sheathed wire with a fancy looking plug on it. The former is the horn wire, the latter is the airbag deployment wire.

Disconnect the horn wire first, which is easy, and then disconnect the airbag. You have to lift up the inner yellow clip on the airbag connector as the first step to this.

Then you lift the connector away from the airbag.

Now you need to disconnect the wire from the clockspring which runs to the steering wheel. This is the one the horn wire connects to, and also has a grey sheathed wire running into the frame of the steering wheel. Leave the yellow airbag wire be, it remains with the clockspring on the steering column.

Removing the old steering wheel

Good practise before taking off the old wheel is to mark the centre of the shaft, all the way out to the steering wheel. I didn’t do the greatest job here, but it’s really only to ensure stuff lines up in case you work on the car a bit more than I am doing here. Smart to do anyway. I didn’t do the best job but whatever.

Brace the wheel with your knees and use a reasonable length bar to undo it. It shouldn’t be super tight but some cars definitely end up with much tighter steering wheel nuts than others.

Once the nut is loose, undo it a few turns but DO NOT fully take it off. This saves you punching yourself in the jaw with a steering wheel when you pull the wheel off.

If your wheel is stuck on then there are 2 threaded holes for you to use with a steering wheel puller. I didn’t need that, just worked it a little back and forth with my body braced into the seat and I got it off the shaft quite easily. Here it is fully against the undone nut to give you an idea why it’s good to keep the nut on.

I took zero pics with the wheel fully off, but DO NOT turn the clockspring other than minor adjustements to line it all back up when you fit the new wheel. Have the wheel lined up in a nice position where you can re-align the new wheel to (e.g. match the back of the steering wheel to the cowl over the column) and slide it back on.

Fitting the new steering wheel

This part is super easy. With the wheel lined up the same way as the old one was, and with the clockspring oriented with the wiring part right at the top of the wheel and in the middle, it just slides onto the splines.

Do the steering wheel nut up finger tight and make sure you aren’t crushing anything, then use a torque wrench to do it up to 32 Nm.

Make sure all of the wires are clipped into the clockspring, and then refit the wiring to the airbag. Place it onto the 3 pins and then just push it down and it’ll clip into place.

Ta-da, new wheel fitted.

Put on the negative battery terminal, re-train any steering wheel controls you might need to do with an aftermarket stereo and go for a spin with your newly upgraded car.

Wheel differences

Since someone will inevitably ask:

  • The wheel is fully leather on the outside, though the bottom of the rim is plastic on the inside of the wheel. This makes it a full upgrade over the semi plastic wheel of the lite, but much of a muchness to a GLX or XL wheel.
  • The flat bottomed wheel trims about 15 mm off the wheel
  • The rim is about 1.5 mm thicker than a Jimny wheel, with added thumb grip areas at the 10 and 2 o’clock positions.
  • Dish of the wheel is the same
  • Outer diameter of the wheels are the same, but the slighter thicker rim of the Swift wheel makes it feel slightly smaller

Is it worth it?

I think so. I also didn’t pay much buying a wheel from the wreckers that didn’t come with an airbag so it’s a lot more a worthwhile mod at $60 than paying $600 for a re-shaped Jimny wheel.