328 door lock issue...

Todd,

I'm not sure, but I'd guess it would be possible to switch the passenger lock to the driver side. At least you wouldn't have to buy a new lock and have it re-keyed.

 

I swaped over door locks on my 328, LH to RH, RH to LH. A very easy job. I remember there the same locks.

 

How different are the lock cylinders for the "wing" window vents? They are keyed the same as the doors....using the one from the passenger side would be great...since how often to do open that???

 

If graphite lube doens't free it up, you'll have to take the lock cylinder out.

Depending on how it's made, you'll likely find a chromed face-plate cap crimped over the outside edge of the lock cylinder. Carefully removing this cap might give access to the "sliding door" mechanism.

A cleaning may help. Do the cap removal on a flat surface with a bare floor around, in case a tiny spring goes for a leap. Oh, yes - wear safety glasses. (I keep forgetting, as I wear "safety" glasses all the time.)

 

Tod just swap the bloody locks over dude, it takes less than an hour of your time, and its so simple dude, straight up. You will say to your self after its done with screwdriver in hand, "that was bloody simple".

 

One option, which I did on my old 308, was to install keyless entry. Made all the difference in the world.

Check it out:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-BxbYnWMtveX/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?i=514REC11


--Mike

 

Yeah, I went through this. I bought the trunk release solenoid and also a window rollup kit.

My advice is, don't bother with any of the fancy stuff. You'll be surprised at what a full order of magnitude cooler the experiece is with the keyless entry alone!

Oh and for the remote start kit... I'd pass .

I just ordered mine from Crutchfield yesterday! If you order it from Crutchfield (the only place I've found them), be sure to let me know because I have a promotion code for you to use.


Take care,

--Mike

 

Mike did the kit come with everything you needed? Thanks.

 

Well, the old REC-11 unit I installed in my 308. On that car, I had to actually put in actuators. I then had access to all of the wires that I needed (from the actuators), which them connected nicely to a two-or-three relay "widget" which also connected to the REC-11 keyless entry "brain." Additional relays are required if you want to do fancier things that this unit supports, like flash your parking lights (I did), dome light (I did), or starter disable (I did NOT).

Now the 328, I just don't know how the job is going to go. I'm quite confident it can be done once I find the correct leads for the actuators, however, I do expect that I might be a considerable mental "exercise" to figure out how to get it wired in in the most non-invasive manner as possible. What I suspect is going to end up happening is, I'm going to find say three wires that connect the actuators together (I presume they're connected because they're slaves to eachother, right), and then make a custom harness that splices in to those wires, but also has leads coming off for the third party alarm brain / relay pack. If this is the case, then the wiring might actually be quite simple.

Regarding "what if the door is open and I lock the doors," that's no problem. I tested this "test case" on my 308. The alaram works by sending a, say, 1/2 second "pulse" to each door lock motor. If the door lock doesn't go down, like if the door is open, well it tries for 1/2 second, and then that's it, no more pulses.

I suspect though, that from what I've heard, there's this logic already in the 328--like after a time interval "t" if the door is open it won't keep trying to lock the doors? This could be an overload in the door lock actuator (like the old 308 window switches), but it could also be some sort of brain somewhere that has a timer on it to deliver "pulses." I'm going to check out the wiring guide.

In any case, I'm quite confident that it can be done, and that this REC-11 unit is the way to go (having done it before on my 308, and it was truly awesome). No more stooping over at the doorlocks.

I'll post an installation guide once I get the 328 and REC-11 both in my garage at the same time .


--Mike

 

Mike,
Looking forward to it...this is something I have thought about everytime the Crutchfield catalog shows up...

Dave

 

There are only two wires between the driver's door actuator and the pass door one. The driver's door actuator also gets power and ground.

That's it. No separate sensors or inputs.

I'm presuming that the "door open" logic is based on the actuator current draw as it pushes the mechanical lock linkage around. (The different "feel" of the lock button between open and closed would show as a different amount of "pushing" force, reflected in the current draw of the actuator doing the pushing. This is how your garage door opener knows when the door is blocked.) There's also likely an internal position sensor to tell if the linkage moved far enough. Without putting a 'scope on the connecting wires, I'm not sure how the pass-to-driver's side slaving works.

I suspect that the REC-11 kit will expect to replace the stock actuators with the kit's units. You might lose the slaved operation from either key, unless that feature is built into the kit. The "door open" logic would probably require sensors provided with the kit. The kit is likely a complete replacement to the stock system, rather than an augment to it.

 

Good thoughts. As it happens, the REC-11 kit does NOT include actuators. I had to buy them separately for me 308. But the 328 with actuators should not need them.

The REC-11 now takes human input (transmitter) with some automated logic (re-lock doors after 90 seconds optionally, etc.) and sends pulses of a pre-defined interval to certain wires.

If there are actuators, and there are two independent inputs voltage-wise that will make one go up and down, and both have these two inputs, the REC-11 can accomodate it.

If I'm correct then, the REC-11 actually AUGMENTS the exiting actuators and primitive door lock logic (if there really is any "logic" going on as opposed to simple master/slave "electronic" relationships).

We'll find out soon enough, I suppose. I'll check out my new fancy pre-89 wiring diagram .

 

According to my wiring diagrams (the '87 and '89 appear identical, except for the ABS page added to the '89), you may have a problem using the stock actuators.

The driver's side actuator has four wires - power, ground and two wires that connect to the pass side actuator. The pass side actuator has only the two wires to the driver's side unit. You may need to experiment a bit with a DMM or a 'scope to figure out the triggering signals needed by the stock units. Then there'll be the question of whether the REC-11 can drive those signals (or whether you can mung up an adapter with help from Radio Shack).

 

Si what happened?? It worked?