Clock Spring in E85

[grrussell]

Good afternoon.

During the reinstallation of my steering wheel, I accidentally unravelled the clock spring in my Z4 E85 today . I carefully wound it back up and diligently placed it back in it's casing, no wire was disconnected or damaged so I plan on reusing it.

To get the clock spring in the correct position (to prevent the ribbons disconnecting when continuing to use the steering wheel in normal driving and manoeuvring) I counted 8 exact turns from lock to lock. As I had parked the car on a level surface and the steering wheel was bang central before I disconnected the battery, sense would say I should position the clock spring bang on 4 turns either way. However, if I were to do that, the clock spring wouldn't be in the same position that it was in when I took the steering wheel off (the gold plate was facing down, but if I were to count 4 turns, the gold plate would be facing up).

Currently I have it positioned at 4 and a half turns one way and 3 and a half turns the other. If anyone needs further clarification on this, please feel free to comment below and I will try my best to explain it better .

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Does anyone have much experience of this?

[E-bmw]

But, surely your steering is less than 8 turns lock-to-lock so it wouldn't matter within the 1/2 turn you can get it to centred.