Thrustmaster T2 Gear buttons installation
It's very easy to add gear-shift buttons to the wheel. First you have to go
to an electronics shop and find two pushbutton switches. Make sure that the
buttons will fit into one of the holes in the spokes of the steering wheel.
The buttons I found fit snugly into the outer-most holes, so I did not have
to do anything further to secure them. The buttons go in through the back
of the spoke so they can be depressed with your middle finger quite easily.
The opposite end of each button (the switch) should have two connection
points, which will come through to the front side of the spoke. (at this
point you may find it easier to remove the wheel from the unit by removing
the***at the wheel's base).
Next you will have to remove the 6 screws on the bottom of the unit to pull
off the cover. You will see a number of wires, but we are only concerned
with the purple, red, and yellow wires which connect to the shift stick.
The yellow wire is the common ground wire, the red wire is button 1, and the
purple wire is button 2. You will need to expose a small area on each of
these wires and attach another wire for each by soldering or wrap-and-taping.
Each piece of new wire must be long enough to reach the buttons/switches on
the wheel with enough slack to allow for full wheel movement.
Drill a small hole in the housing to get the wires from the inside out to the
wheel. I used the drill-bit from a small cordless screwdriver and had no
difficulty.
Connect the wires to the switches keeping in mind that the side getting the
red wire extension is button 1, and the side getting the purple wire
extension is button 2. The extension from the yellow wire must be split in
two and connected to one connector of each switch. The red and purple wire
extensions are connected to the remaining connectors of each switch.
It might sound a bit complicated at first if you're not electronically
inclined, but once you have the pushbutton switches it should become quite
clear what you have to do. If I can do it, anybody can.