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Central locking problems ...?

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Old 09-01-2014, 02:31 PM
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2wd
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Default Central locking problems ...?

Hi .. may need a little help on this .. one morning I came out to my 88 2wd Sapp. Cos. and it was dead .. battery flat. I put on my spare batt. and Car started fine, took it out of my garage and left it with engine running ... but after a short while there came a "buzzing" noice from the left side of the car and about 30 sec's after the same on the right side ... I switched off the car but noice was still there, .. I pulled the fuse for the C-locks and it stopped. I've tried to look a bit at it but no luck solving it yet ??

As I read the wiring dia for a 88 2wd Cos, there is no relay... only a wire from batt via a fuse to the 5 locks .. does that sound correct .. ?
Old 09-01-2014, 03:00 PM
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i'll answer here so people know where it is

you've got the 2wd car so i'll assume you've got the early button locks rather than the later handle locks

the handle locks only have one cable which operates the central locking motor, whereas the button ones have 2 rods which run alongside the door skin

over time, the grease stops them from moving smoothly and this then tends to burn out the central locking motors

both front doors are "master" motors and will have 4 wires, one earth and then one to lock and one to unlock plus the trigger wire to feed everything else

the good news is that you can use the motors from the newer cars

the bad news is that they run the "other" way so when you would trigger them to lock, they would unlock and vice versa

ok, first step, remove both front door cars

some screws around the outside plus 2 underneath, don't undo the ones that are under the door pocket as these hold the door pocket in place rather than the door card

you will also need to undo the door handle as well as the little screw that holds the door handle cover plate in place

some people will also remove the wing mirror inner cover but you can wiggle them off without, but take it off just in case as you may need to do other stuff too later on if this won't work

it's easier to NOT remove the kick panels to unplug wires from there because they tend never to go back together again but if you knew what you were doing that would be the easiest thing to do, but more on that later if you need to do it

along the bottom of the inner door skin you will find several cable ties and several little clips holding the wiring loom inside the door in place, there will be several wires there, for the door open sensor, central locking, electric windows, electric mirrors etc but it's easier to remove all the clips and cable ties to you can figure out which one is which, the central locking should be a white plug but it's all bundled together so you may have to pick it all apart in any case

unplug both motors on both sides

once you've done this you can go on to "step 2"
Old 09-01-2014, 03:02 PM
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"step 2"

this is where it gets really complicated, and, without wanting to scare you, it's also going to get even more complicated if you forget how you took it apart

on the plus side, the later cars are even more complicated

the central locking motors are screwed into the inner door skins in about the middle of the door, you should see 3 screws that hold them in place

undo these screws and then figure out how to unhook the motor from the metal bar it's hooked onto

once you've done this on both sides, you can progress to "step 3"
Old 09-01-2014, 03:06 PM
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"step 3"

you should now have a central door locking motor out on both sides, unplugged and unhooked

now you can close the lock on the door with a screwdriver or the like by pushing the catch closed BUT MAKE SURE THE DOOR IS OPEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

once they are "closed" you can then try and "lock" them with the button to see if the metal rods are free or stuck, if they are stuck you should be able to regrease the runners to get them free again

they run in little white plastic runners which push in, over time they will either dry out or crack and break because they go brittle which leads them to snag

trying to find replacements may be difficult so try not to break them when you remove them if you need to in order to grease them
Old 09-01-2014, 03:21 PM
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"part 4"

assuming the rods are now grease and moving freely, you can now reconnect the plug to the motors to find out whats wrong with them

don't hook them back up, just push the plugs back in again

when you do the locks may cycle, which is why it's important not to close the doors and lock yourself out

either pull the hooked part or push it in, it'll have a rubber boot over the top

this will either close or open the doors to the rest of the car (other than the opposite side front door as you will have left that disconnected as yet)

if it all works as normal, disconnect the plug and do the same thing on the other side

this way you can work out which motor is sounding off

if they both sound fine then the next thing to do is hook them back up again and see if they still work with load on them

if they are fine and dandy then your grease thing worked and you should be ok

if it doesn't then you know you'll need a new motor, with 4 wires and not 3

if you have to find the later motors they will still work and plug in, you just have to cut and shut the wiring
Old 09-01-2014, 05:31 PM
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hi.. well I dont know what to say .. this is perfect !!!

As it is now most of the car is in pieces, wiring hanging out all over the place as I'm trying to tidy up 18 years of extra wiring.

Well I have all motors out and disconnected ... as it is when I connect eihter of the front (masters) motors (all other disconnected),and they are in the open possition they just keep on going, but stops when I push in the actuator arm .. it feels like the arms are not connected inside the motors...and something maybe shorted when in open position..?? Also the right rear door lock seems "dead" as nothing happens when its connected..? It seems strange if 3 motors suddenly from one da to another are shorted .. ?

What is your opinion on this ?
Old 09-01-2014, 05:46 PM
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have you swapped motors from one side to the other?

there could be a short in the wiring somewhere which is causing it to constantly cycle between open and closed, but that is normally only the case when the bars are stuck, hence removing the motors to check them individually

on the rear motor loom you will see which wire it missing compared to the front loom so if you put a meter into this extra wire you should see if it's got power to it or not

when it has a pulse of power it triggers the motor to open/close and then this sends the signal around the rest of the system

what you may have is an older alarm which has been wired into the c/l loom which is not at fault

this is normally tapped into the circuit around the footwells, which is the next problem because there is so much loom stuck into such a small space

find the feed source for the trigger power first and see if thats constantly live and then get back to me, your next steps will be removing the sub-loom in the a pillars to check for broken wires there and then following it around the car under the dash
Old 09-01-2014, 07:50 PM
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Ok ... yes, tried to swap them .. no change. I have meassured all wires through the A pillars and no shorts found.

One thing I cant figure out is .. when boot motor is hooked up there is Batt voltage on the red (red/yellow) wire as expected on all motors, but also I have around 11,7v on one more wire (the yellow/green I think it was) ... this voltage dissapears (not the batt woltage on the red wire) when boot motor is disconnected.. but either way, with or without the boot motor hoked up, the master motors run cracy when I put them in the unluck position ? But boot motor woks aswell as the left rear motor.

I'll hopefully get a little time tomorrow to have another look at it ... as I supect that there is a connector problem in the both front doors as I could actually stop the motors running by moving the connector ...?
Old 09-01-2014, 08:34 PM
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the boot motor is the same as the rear doors, just s alve

they just ran 3 seperate wires to it rather than one

if that is causing issues then it may be that the wiring for that may be causing the issues

good luck with finiding the cause, these things are rarely easy to discover, but when you do you will say "now why didn't i think of that first"
Old 10-01-2014, 12:32 PM
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Hi ... quick question... I will need new motors for sure .. but will I be able to use the motors from a 90' and upwards ???
Old 10-01-2014, 03:18 PM
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Yes, but they work in reverse

You can use them but see if you can get everything Dr m the donor car including all the little rods and handles and licking mechanism s

Its a worthy swap because there is also a metal lock shield in the door to prevent people putting a slim Jim down the window to open the door lock
Old 10-01-2014, 06:48 PM
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Top info here
Sounds like a right ballache though .
Old 25-01-2014, 02:42 PM
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Hi .. it seems that the right front door lock itself could be the problem, as it feels very tight when you push/pull it. result .. it probertly broke/shorted the motor so that it kept on running until it broke the gears inside.. and for some reson it took the left front door motor and right rear door motor out too (all lock motors just went open/close untill battery went flat. :-(

Anyway I now got new seconhand motors in and it works (right front door will need a new lock and will get it as soon as I find a ok one)...well almost as I on top of it I found that both connectors inthe left and the right front doors are "broken" .. bad connections and I have ordered some new connector for all doors just to be sure .. so hopefully all will be ok soon
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