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Central locking wiring


WheelerDealers

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Hi guys,

 

I've been asked to fit an aftermarket remote locking kit to a friend's 98 Escort Si.

The kit provides negative pulse but I can convert this to positive easily using relays if needs be.

 

Does anyone know where the Central Locking ECU is in an Escort (I'm presuming the driver's kick panel), and whether it is positive or negative pulse for lock.

 

Also, would anyone know the wire colours for lock, unlock and deadlock?

 

Any thoughts would be most appreciated, I had a search around the site and found some advice about fitting aftermarket lock motors etc, but I can't find anything that details the wire colours or how the ECU operates, maybe I'm just being thick!?

 

Cheers!

 

Bob

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Hi guys,

 

I've been asked to fit an aftermarket remote locking kit to a friend's 98 Escort Si.

The kit provides negative pulse but I can convert this to positive easily using relays if needs be.

 

Does anyone know where the Central Locking ECU is in an Escort (I'm presuming the driver's kick panel), and whether it is positive or negative pulse for lock.

 

Also, would anyone know the wire colours for lock, unlock and deadlock?

 

Any thoughts would be most appreciated, I had a search around the site and found some advice about fitting aftermarket lock motors etc, but I can't find anything that details the wire colours or how the ECU operates, maybe I'm just being thick!?

 

Cheers!

 

Bob

 

the ecu itself is tucked up inside the frame of car above the area revealed when you take off the drivers kick panel, you should be able to reach up and access the wires through the hole in the frame (its easier to unplug the CL ecu's wiring harness and pull the harness out into the footwell to make connected wires simpler)

 

the colours for the signal wires vary massively even between similar aged vehicles though, the two main variations which Ive came across are Yellow & Yellow/black, White & white/Black, they can usually be found together near the centre of the harness plug.

 

Unfortunatly Ive done a couple of other cars between doing a escort so I cant 100% be sure of the polarity..... though I have a hunch it was Negative (best to wait till someone else can confirm it though)

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Installers Technical guide states:

 

Ford Escort 1992-94

 

Positive locking

 

Lock = Yellow wire in o/s driver door harness

 

Unlock = White wire in o/s driver door harness

 

 

1995 onwards

 

Positive locking

 

Yellow/Red wire in Black multi plug to OE alarm, behind o/s front kick panel

 

White/Red wire x 2 in Black multi plug to OE alarm behind o/s front kick panel

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Hi fellas,

 

Thank you both for the helpful replies, Shawdreamer that's a handy tip about pulling the ECU connector down to tap into the wires, TBH I wouldn't have thought of that and would have spent hours swearing at it :rolleyes: I'm thick like that! :pancake:

 

demented, thanks for the wire colours, understand about the variation but you've given me a good starting point.

 

I seem to recall from my days of Mondeo ownership that the Ford OEM alarms require a double pulse to engage double locking, so have built an interface with two relays and a capacitor in case it's needed.

 

I'll post details of that and any unexpected discoveries when I finish the install, thank you both for a good starting point.

 

Cheers!

 

Bob

Edited by WheelerDealers
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Only need a double pulse if arming and disarming OE alarm with deadlocking via switches which surround the door lock barrels inside the doors, otherwise just tap into the lock & unlock wires.

 

I dont think a double pulse will actually operate the central locking.

It will operate the deadlocks and OE alarm but only once the doors have been locked either manually or via after market remote control system.

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Well I finally got a look at it tonight and found the Central locking ECU and the wires, colours were spot on, cheers for that :)

 

I've got it locking / unlocking electrically with no issues, just need to find the double locking wires now (car owner does want to trigger the DL and Ford Alarm with the remote), suspect they're in the second multiplug with the thinner wires. I've tested all the wires on the left plug and it's not there, though did find it's wired to the boot release solenoid interestingly (did the Ford OEM remote locking solution have a tailgate release button on the remote like the Focus / Mk2 Mondeo?).

Will do more investigation at the weekend, unfortunately fading daylight stopped play for tonight.

 

I've built up the old Mondeo interface with a capacitor and two relays to simulate the unlock - delay - lock key action and trigger the alarm and double locking, just need to find those wires now!

 

 

I'll post full details when done in case it's useful to anyone else. Any other thoughts / pointers you might have in the meantime, fire away!Well I finally got a look at it tonight and found the Central locking ECU and the wires, colours were spot on, cheers for that :)

 

I've got it locking / unlocking electrically with no issues, just need to find the double locking wires now (car owner does want to trigger the DL and Ford Alarm with the remote), suspect they're in the second multiplug with the thinner wires. I've tested all the wires on the left plug and it's not there, though did find it's wired to the boot release solenoid interestingly (did the Ford OEM remote locking solution have a tailgate release button on the remote like the Focus / Mk2 Mondeo?).

Will do more investigation at the weekend, unfortunately fading daylight stopped play for tonight.

 

I've built up the old Mondeo interface with a capacitor and two relays to simulate the unlock - delay - lock key action and trigger the alarm and double locking, just need to find those wires now!

 

 

I'll post full details when done in case it's useful to anyone else. Any other thoughts / pointers you might have in the meantime, fire away! :)

Edited by WheelerDealers
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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, what a detective story this turned into :nutter: :lol:

 

A fortnight later, and I finally have it all working properly.

 

The central locking, was very simple, wire colours were spot on, cheers guys :)

 

Getting it to double lock properly, was another matter entirely and a bit of a shitter at times to be honest lol.

 

Anyway, it turns out that the two thick white/red 'unlock' wires on the smaller multiplug - one is central locking unlock, the second (pin 9) is actually double locking unlock. However confusingly, activating that pin will trigger a central locking unlock as well!

 

As for locking the double locking, took me ages and some external help to figure out how the hell that was done.

Eventually found out that the double locking set (Ford call it 'Double locking Reset' just to confuse matters) wire is a thin yellow/red wire at pin 1 of the large wider multiplug.

 

Simple you might think, have two lock signals, one to central locking wire, one to double locking.

Fcuk no, why would it be that simple :lol:?

 

It turns out there are actually two double-locking trigger wires (as I discovered much later), and that these must be triggered independently, can't be triggered at the same instant (they must be done in a 1.....2 type action), and before it will double-lock, the double-locking unlock signal must have been sent previously!

 

The two double-locking wires are both yellow/red and are together, starting at pin 1 on the large multiplug. Just to compound matters there are other, completely unrelated yellow/red wires on the same plug! Test before connecting! :lol:

 

The first of these yellow/red wires seems to double lock the drivers door, rear passenger door, and boot. The second does the front passenger door, rear drivers door, and Fcuk knows what else :lol:

 

I tried a multitude of ways to get it to double lock and couldn't figure out why it wasn't working properly. I initially had both wires bridged into a single cable and a relay sending +12v at the same time the central locking was triggered. This produced intermittent results where certain doors would sometimes double lock, sometimes not, or sometimes no double locking at all no rhyme or reason to it.

 

I next tried with two diodes on the double locking wires to isolate them, but still the same single relay wire sending the lock cable to both at the same time. Again, intermittent results, usually it would result in 1-2 doors randomly double locking but again it was completely random.

 

Finally, after loads of dicking about, the way I discovered which works properly was sending the lock signal to the drivers/rear passenger door wire first, then the other one slightly afterwards. I accomplished this by triggering the first DL signal directly from the locking interface, while at the same time using that DL signal to trigger a relay, whose output a split second later went separately to the second DL wire (passenger and rear drivers door). This very small delay between the two wires seems to be just enough to trigger a successful double lock of all doors and boot.

 

Before I even got to this stage I of course had to build the old Mondeo style interface to emulate the unlock-pause-lock key action which is supposed to trigger double locking (no such luck :lol: ).

 

This sounds very convoluted but it's actually quite simple when you get to the bottom of it, I have some diagrams I designed on paper, will try and post them here in case it's useful to anyone else.

 

One thing I did find is that even though double locking is being triggered as if with the key, the car doesn't do the double indicator flash when triggered by remote, not entirely sure why but it was the least of my worries at that point :lol:

To get round this I used another relay, triggered by the remote locking output and wired to the hazard switch, to trigger an indicator flash. I also wired it to the alarm horn (thick green/orange wire on smaller multiplug) to provide a momentary blip on locking.

 

Will try and do some diagrams so the above makes sense, it's actually not that complicated of you come to it pre-armed :lol:

 

Cheers for the help guys :)

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  • 1 month later...
  • 7 years later...

well

almost 10 years after...

I just got back my first car ... a 98 escort xr3i MK4.

just had a mechanic refurb and new paint job.... 

just want to install an alarm and i'm completly lost...

 

My alarm sends +12v to lock and in a different wire +12v to unlock... the pulse can be regulated (3,5 sec i suppose).

What wires should i connect the wires to and where to find them?

I just read this post and cant figure what is double locking....

 

I simply want to push the remote lock and get the car locked and push de unlock and get it unlocked... can someone help me? 

what is "double locking"? what is it needed for?

Thanks.

 

 

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