Power Locks for DX Owners

[Forum Bot]

Ok, after my car was broken into about 2-3 months ago, I decided to go hardcore with an alarm with tons of cool toys to go along with it. I work at circuit city, so the resources were there for me, but you can do this pretty cheap if you DIY too. The alarm of choice for me was the VIPER 790xv with LCD pager. I've hooked it up with: (remote will power) power locks/alarm trunk release street glow remote start (on stick shift ) Anyways, in this DIY I'll show you what I did to hook up the actuators to my locks, but I ran the wires to an actuator controller that interfaces with my alarm. of course, if you dont have an alarm, you can use relays and switches and what not. Ok, first step: Took me a while to figure out what holds the crank in place, because you can't remove the panel if you dont remove the crank. Well, it's held on with a pin and youll need to use a probe to pull it out. Do it slowly and put a hand near so when it flies out, you won't lose it like I did. Remove the door panel. It's held on with a whopping 5 screws. Also, remove the trim piece near your mirrors. Now peel back the white lining thats held on with never drying glue that ruins your clothes. The actuator of choice for me was the DEI 524N which is a 2 wire actuator. I went down to a hardware store and bought about 5 feet of flattened aluminum strapping which runs for about 3 dollars. While you're there, pick up about 3 feet of the thinest steel rod you can find and a box of 1/2 inch self tapping screws. A few holes in your door panel and some screws later you have a mounted actuator. Place it directly below the lock. Take your steel rod, and loop one end to the actuator and take it to the corner of the plunger closest to the side of the door where the latch is. Make a few bends so that it'll have clearance from the other crap in your door. Then drill a hole in your plunger (i found this is very vital, if you drill it too close to the bottom, or your rod is too short you can break the plunger, rendering your power lock system useless.) At some point I'll reinforce them with a metal bracket of some sort. After a month of having done my locks, my drivers side is working perfectly, and when i checked on it from when I changed my speakers, the drivers side was perfectly fine. The passangers side broke the plunger, but its because the rod was pulling on it too hard. Lube up your rod with some ceramic grease so it wont rub and rust the stuff in your door. Before you put the panel back on, you have to cut off about 6 or 7 inches of foam thats attached to the panel itself. It's the big portion in the lower corner, of course, its already been done in the following image. the hardest part is running the wires through the door jamb. If you do this, expect to waste about 4 hours of your life. Ok, I'm done, have fun, be creative. Post any suggestions that may improve the performance of this DIY. Edit: You cant test the sucker without the door panel on because there is nothing holding the plunger straight. But all you need to do is hook it up to a 9v battery or a 12 volt drill battery for a split second to test the actuator.

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