P1020269 Date: 04/12/04 This is the central locking kit I will be installing, these things can range up to $100 for a kit at places like supercheap etc I won this one on eBay at a very good price, it works perfectly even on my old locks, although if your locks are a little stiff like mine were I recommend you give them a good grease while you are working on them. The URL for the eBay and online stores where you can get these items are: http://www.techieonthemove.com and http://stores.ebay.com.au/TECHIE-ON-THE-MOVE-Car-Accessories
I'd really recommend giving them a look, I've bought central locking with remote, central locking without remote, 9mm earthing lead kits and a car alarm all through this store and all items work perfectly.
This central locking kit comes without remote (the intent is to get the car alarm I also purchased installed and running this central locking, which will give me remote access). It is easy to understand the instructions. The installation was very difficult but that was primarily because the HR has no provision for central locking at all, even though that was the case it still only took a weekends worth of time to install and get running, and that is with me stopping to take photos and also to think and rethink how I was going to install the actuators.
P1020270 Date: 04/12/04 This is the kit, it comes with a wiring harness, linkages, lock fittings for the linkages, screws for the lock fittings, a control unit and various screws and other small fittings. You may notice that it also has two masters, some central locking systems only include one master, so only locking/unlocking one door will lock them all, this one includes two, so you can install them in the front doors and either unlock the car from the passenger or drivers side.
P1020271 Date: 04/12/04 This is my old door trim on the back door, this will be the first door I will try since there is generally more space in the back door with no lock linkages to worry about.
P1020272 Date: 04/12/04 First we remove the arm wrest, this is done with a large philips head screwdriver. There are two screws underneath the arm wrest that are undone and it will literally fall off. This then leaves the door handle and winder handle easy to access.
P1020273 Date: 04/12/04 As was shown in the door handle removal guide, to remove the door handles you use a door handle remover (funnily enough), you push it behind the handle, between the handle and the plate it sits on, and push the spring clamp off. Once this is done the handle might need to be wiggled to come off.
P1020274 Date: 04/12/04 Next we remove the door trims, this can be a tricky part depending on your car, door trims always have their own needs in the way of tricks to get them off depending on the make/model. On the HR though they are fairly easy, the main thing to take care with though is that you don't rip the clips out of the trim itself or break the trim. The best way I've found is to slip a small screwdriver behind the trim and lever it out a little until you can see where a clamp is. Then slip the screwdriver in behind the clamp (so that the screw driver is pushing against the clamp not the trim) and lever the whole lot forward.
P1020275 Date: 04/12/04 Once the door trims are removed you may be greeted with plastic over the inspection holes. Generally you can just oull it straight off without breaking it, it is only glued onto the door. Once you are finished your work though and tested everything is working, I recommend gluing some plastic back over the holes, if your old plastic is too deteriorated then just fold a garbage bag and use that.
P1020276 Date: 04/12/04 The first thing to do is have a good look inside the door while locking/unlocking it to see how everything moves and works. My first attempt to install the central locking will be with the doors on the car, with the back doors this was partially successful but with the front doors it was a complete failure (due to the linkage being left so long and force loss over that distance). Overall I found it easier to do the job with the doors removed and the doors sitting upside down under some good light (and with the winder linkages removed). The upper inspection hole on the back door gives you a good look at the linkage that supplies the force from the lock itself to the locking knob. At this stage my basic plan is to put the actuator above the linkage and link the actuator to the linkage by bending the probe arm to suit the angle...it will be clear later.
P1020277 Date: 04/12/04 Firstly I want to get the window winder out of the way and then push the window up so that it is out of my way and I can get my head inside the door easier, the window winder is removed easily with a few screws and then you slide it along the window tray and off the window at the large end of the track (pictured on the right).
P1020279 Date: 04/12/04 Another look at the linkage shows how it proceeds along the top of the door to the knob.
P1020280 Date: 04/12/04 My first step with actuator placement is to make sure it will sit inside the door, you must be certain it doesn't conflict with any other linkages or the window winder and window.
P1020281 Date: 04/12/04 Once I was happy with the actuator placement inside the door I move it to the outside to simulate its position inside the door so that I can mark out and drill the holes for the screws that will hold the actuator on.
P1020282 Date: 04/12/04 I find it easier to put a nail through one of the holes and give it a light tap to leave a mark where the hole should go, then get a center punch and make a decent punch mark to guide the drill.
P1020283 Date: 04/12/04 I found it then easier with this job to get a straight edge and mark out the hole centers.
P1020284 Date: 04/12/04 Then using the straight edge mentioned above I can mark out the next hole center using the measurement I've already put onto the straight edge.
P1020285 Date: 04/12/04 Now that the holes are drilled I need to decide how I want the actuator linkage to link to the lock linkage, my decision was to put two bends in it and use the lock nut at the end, this will keep force from the actuator moving straight away from the actuator as it was designed to.
P1020286 Date: 04/12/04 The actuator linkage is fairly hard steel (well you don't want it bending instead of pushing your lock linkage) but you can still bend it with moderate force and some pliers.
P1020287 Date: 04/12/04 This is the linkage bent and how I will attach it to the lock linkage. Please note this was only successful on one of the two doors, on the other door the linkage was simply too stiff and I had to use an alternate method shown later in this guide.
P1020288 Date: 04/12/04 I now file a flat spot on the actuator linkage, this will allow the screws to sit flat to the linkage and allow me to get some decent force into them, which will stop them from moving under force from the actuator when it pushes or pulls the lock linkage.
P1020289 Date: 04/12/04 I can now put the nut that will lock the actuator linkage to the door lock linkage onto the acuator linkage. With the flat spot I've added to the linkage this screw will hold the locking nut very firmly through that one screw. I can then screw the actuator inside the door and attach the other side of the locking nut to the door lock linkage, you will need a decent flat bladed screwdriver to do up the screws inside the door.
P1020291 Date: 05/12/04 Next comes the front door, we remove the door trims and handles as mentioned previously and this is how it looks ready for its actuator. You might note here that this door is by far different to the back door, it's worth taking into account that every door is different, they are either a mirror image of the opposite side or completely different front to rear. Where the rear door has a linkage running from the lock through the door to the knob the front door has the knob directly above the lock and only a very short vertical linkage. With the door on the car I struggled to get the actuator fitted and the job wasn't a complete success, I would recommend taking the front doors off and doing them like I will show later in the guide.
P1020292 Date: 05/12/04 Even though this photo is very dark it shows how much stuff is inside the door and how little space you have to play with. Instead of actually attaching the actuator linkage to the lock linkage I decided to try to attach it directly to the lock which has a small plate inside the door which appeared to be perfect for this application.
P1020293 Date: 05/12/04 I now check the length of the actuator linkage to see how far it will go and check how it will line up inside the door, plus since the actuator will be just below the window when wound down I have to make sure that it will reach the full ditance.
P1020294 Date: 05/12/04 Inside the door, this is the rearward side of the door, it shows the window slide, and a few lugs. The lugs are for the door trim clip and the smaller is for the seal clip from the outside. I will need to remove the smaller one to put the actuator where I want it for this application.
P1020295 Date: 05/12/04 You can simply pull the door rubber out a little and the clip will be exposed, it should be fairly easy to remove as it is generally only a guide for the rubber.
P1020296 Date: 05/12/04 This is the clip removed from the rubber, as you can see it is pretty basic and you shouldn't damage the rubber by removing it, also you can just remove it by hand.
P1020297 Date: 05/12/04 The clip pushes through a hole in the door into a small rubber cap, you can pull the cap out pretty easily by hand or using a small screwdriver to lever it. Pictured is the cap removed from inside the door.
P1020298 Date: 05/12/04 Next I like to line up the actuator on the outside of the door relative to where it will sit inside the door and mark the holes for drilling. Remember to take the window into account (i.e. when it winds down) as to where you want the actuator to sit.
P1020299 Date: 05/12/04 First I drill one hole then test fit the actuator inside the door to be sure I am happy with its position.
P1020300 Date: 05/12/04 This is a test fit of the actuator, you have to make sure the actuator is in line with whatever it has to push/pull, i.e. any linkages, because its force goes in two directions only, up and down. If you don't line it up perfectly you will lose a lot of force to the angle.
P1020301 Date: 05/12/04 Testing the window winding. With the window wound completely down I have just enough space for it to not connect with the actuator. This though highlights the problems with the installation at the moment, if I need to remove the window I'll need to remove the actuator as well. Also, the plate that I am clamping the actuator to at the top doesn't move in an up/down direction, it moves in a tight arc up and down. This wasn't a major problem but it wasn't as effective as it could have been, which is why later you will see an alternative method for the front doors which worked much better.
P1020316 Date: 11/12/04 The alternative methods I have been mentioning first consist of removing the doors, this was so that I could take them inside under some good lights and work on the doors upside down, rather than laying on the ground and trying to work over my head. I'll be starting on the front door that I had just finished. To remove your doors there are simply a few bolts holding them at their hinges, worth noting though is that sometimes these hinges have spacers underneath them to push them out to line up with the guards etc. If your door has spacers then catch them as they fall out and try to count them before you even loosen the bolts, it's easier to put the correct number of spacers back into the right spot when you're putting the door back on then to trial and error the job.
P1020317 Date: 11/12/04 The door inside and turned upside down, ready to be worked on. As you can see my door has been butchered a little by the wonders at Brisbane Car sound, who for some reason couldn't get a six inch speaker and tweeter to fit an unmodified door, but never fear, that's why they are trained in the use of angle grinders, cutting tools and hammers...maybe I should have just gotten a boiler maker to do the job...
Anyway, the first part of the operation is to remove the window winder and then push the window into the top of the door (wound up) position, this will get the winder and window out of the way for you to have a good look inside the door, and also to allow you to more easily get the work done, there's not much space inside a HR door and leaving the window winder arm in there just makes it worse.
P1020318 Date: 11/12/04 To remove the window winder is fairly simple, firstly remove the 3 screws pictured, then push the shaft (pictured between the two screws) into the door. Finally you just have to slide the arm along the runner at the bottom of the window and you can remove it from the runner and take it out of the door completely.
P1020319 Date: 11/12/04 This is the door with the winder arm removed, you can see the large hole where the shaft was (the splined shaft is what your window winder handle slides onto), and also the other 3 holes where the bolts that secured it sat.
P1020320 Date: 11/12/04 This is the window winder arm removed from the car, be careful not to drop it onto anything hard like cement or play around with the spring because in 38 years these things tend to get a bit touchy.
P1020321 Date: 11/12/04 A first look inside the door. As you can see there's not much space to play with, I want to bolt the actuator arm directly to the arm below the lock knob on the door, to do this I have to get over a linkage with my linkage and fit the lock nut that will keep the two linkages together without conflicting with the window at any time.
P1020322 Date: 11/12/04 Another look inside the door, more closely at the linkage I need to bolt to. The linkage I need to bolt to is a little to the left of the center of the picture, it has a bend before it bolts to the locking fittings inside the door so I have to bolt my actuator linkage to the straight section if possible or it won't be very secure.
P1020323 Date: 11/12/04 This is another look at the linkages, but I have placed the actuator on the right to see where exactly I will need it to sit. As you can see in the image the center of the actuator tip (where the arm goes through) will be blocked by the linkage beneath it, this actually won't cause a problem since the tip of the actuator turns freely, therefore I can bolt its arm to the knob arm and its arm will then go over the top of the linkage and fit to the actuator. At this stage though it is easy to see that it is much easier to do this off the car then on.
P1020324 Date: 11/12/04 When placing the actuator you must extend it to its full length of travel before deciding on position, this is so that you are sure it won't collide with anything else when it tries to open the lock.
P1020325 Date: 11/12/04 After bolting the actuator in you should carefully test the travel of the window, in this case the window rubs quite noticeably on the actuator, I want the window to travel a bit further away from the actuator so what I will do is redrill the hole supporting the window guide rail and move it over approximately 1cm. When bolted back up this will stiffen the window up a little but giving the runner a good dose of grease fixes that problem.
P1020326 Date: 11/12/04 On the side of the door is a little screw that holds the guide rail/runner for the window, if you remove the screw you can get a fair bit of movement from the rail and you can see exactly how far you'll need to move it to make it travel past the actuator freely. I'll show the redrilling that was required later in the guide (on another door).
P1020327 Date: 12/12/04 This is the arm that attaches to the lock knob, as you can see it has more bends then a dogs hind leg. In the picture I am holding it exactly as it sits in the door, this is so that I can gauge where I'll need to bolt the actuator arm to and what angle to bolt it on.
P1020329 Date: 12/12/04 In this image I am test fitting the actuator and checking the length of the arm, the lock knob arm is currently removed. As you can see the actuator is at full extension and it is not touching the linkage across the door.
P1020330 Date: 12/12/04 Next comes the drivers door, once again the first step is to remove the window winder and push the window out of the way.
P1020331 Date: 12/12/04 The next step on the drivers door is to remove your side mirror, you don't have to do this but I do because it's a quick job that saves the pain of having to find a replacement if you accidentally bump it and break it. The mirror is held by a single screw on the inner side of the lip of the door.
P1020332 Date: 12/12/04 Here I am removing the nut that holds the window runner adjustment screw, this makes it easier to get the window winder out when I remove its holding screws, also I'll use it to make a slight adjustment to the position of the window runner to push it out a little to put it more in line with the adjustment I will make to the other side and allow the window to miss the actuator when it is wound up/down.
P1020333 Date: 12/12/04 Once again here I am removing the window winder, the first step is to remove the two screws closest to the handle shaft.
P1020334 Date: 12/12/04 After the other two screws are removed the final screw holding the window winder can be removed.
P1020335 Date: 12/12/04 This is the window winder removed from the door, it is best to be careful not to drop these things, the spring can break relatively easily if hit at the wrong angle.
P1020336 Date: 12/12/04 This is the door with the winder removed and the adjustment screw pushed inwards.
P1020337 Date: 12/12/04 Inside the door we can see that it is similar but not the same as the last door, I'll be sitting the actuator as close to the locking knob as possible as before so I will need to remove the plastic sleeve that is pushing into the door at the left of the photo since it is where I will want the actuator to be placed.
P1020338 Date: 12/12/04 This image shows the outside the door and the plastic sleeve that needs to be removed, the sleeve only supports one of the clamps from the trim and it is not detrimental to the look of the door trim to remove one of the clamps (especially a corner one like this one).
P1020339 Date: 12/12/04 The sleeve removed, generally they can just be removed by lifting their lip and pushing them into the door.
P1020340 Date: 12/12/04 With the sleeve removed I am now test fitting the actuator, remember to extend the actuator to full travel before test fitting to make sure it won't meet any interference when working.
P1020341 Date: 12/12/04 Once happy with the actuator placement I drill the holes for the screws and put them through just enough so that their tip penetrates the inside of the door, this way I can test fit the actuator straight onto the screws so that I know it will be in the position I am going to bolt it at plus I can remove it again without using a screwdriver.
P1020342 Date: 12/12/04 This is inside the door, you can see where my two actuator screws are just penetrating.
P1020343 Date: 12/12/04 With the actuator test fitted I now attqach its arm and locking bracket and swing the arm down over the locking knob linkage. Then I use a pen to mark the position of the knob on the linkage and remove it. The linkage is held onto a fitting in the door using a simple clamp spring that twists around the linkage to hold it, you can flip these types of springs off by hand or with a small screwdriver, then the linkage can be removed easily (once the knob is unscrewed).
P1020344 Date: 12/12/04 This is the lock knob arm with the mark showing that I added with the pen to mark the position of the locking nut that will link it to the actuator arm. It's a bit blurry but you can also see the spring that locks the arm in place in this picture.
P1020345 Date: 12/12/04 To remove the arm you will need to unscrew the lock knob from the door, you can do this by hand but they have a very fine thread so it will take a fair few turns to remove the knob.
P1020346 Date: 12/12/04 The knob removed from the door, they are a simple plastic item with a very fine thread inside.
P1020347 Date: 12/12/04 With the knob removed you can now remove the arm itself from inside the door. Pictured is the arm and the small spring steel clamp that holds it, you can see how it slides over the end of the arm and slides around the arm to lock it into place.
P1020348 Date: 12/12/04 Since I have the arm marked where I want the clamp to sit I am now filing that section flat so that the little screws that go through the nut will have a good surface to bolt to, this makes the fitting a lot firmer and a lot less likely to slip under operation.
P1020349 Date: 12/12/04 I am now fitting the actuator arm to the lock arm and screwing the bolts in nice and tight, this is much easier to do outside the door and you can be much more confident it will hold if done this way.
P1020350 Date: 12/12/04 I now bolt the actuator inside the door and slide the window to see what sort of movement of the runner is required to make the window miss the actuator when wound up/down. The screw I am working on is the one that holds the runner, I will unscrew it and drill a hole around 5mm to 10mm deeper into the door and then rebolt the runner to that hole.
P1020351 Date: 12/12/04 This image shows the new hole next to the old original hole in the door. I now simply have to lever the runner out a little and put the bolt back in and it is supported in its new position. As I stated previously this will stiffen the window up a little when wound but if you grease the linkages and the runner grooves (which you might as well do since you've got the doors open).
P1020352 Date: 12/12/04 We can now put the window winder arm back in and bolt it up, you may or may not want to make a slight adjustment to the screw that holds the other window runner to set it a little deeper to match the other side.
P1020353 Date: 12/12/04 Here I am adjusting the bolt that holds the runner at the center of the door, I am only adjusting it inwards a few millimeters just to bring it more inline with the newly adjusted other runner.
P1020354 Date: 14/12/04 Next comes a rear door, the rear doors are much easier to remove as you can see in the image, with the front door open you can get to all the bolts that hold the door hinges. Before undoing them though I usually run a scratch around the outside of them so that when I put the door back on I have a guide as to where they should sit.
P1020355 Date: 14/12/04 This is the door off the car and upside down ready to be worked on. The same principles apply with removing the window winder but in this case we won't be rushing into removing it.
P1020357 Date: 14/12/04 Inside the door we can see that there will be enough space below (above in the image) the door lock knob for the actuator to sit, the main thing though will be to make sure the winder does not hit it, to this end I have left it on the door so that I can get a good look at it and the placement of the actuator.
P1020359 Date: 14/12/04 This is a good look at the door knob linkage and the other linkages, this is pretty much looking from where the actuator will sit, as you can see there is easily ore space than the front doors to fit the actuator and not have it conflicting with other linkages, the problem on this door though is just making sure it doesn't conflict with other fittings. I need to have the actuator pushed against the side of the door to make it work correctly and there is a rubber sleeve (just off the edge of the photo) that is conflicting with that positioning. So my next step will be to remove it.
P1020360 Date: 14/12/04 The sleeve mentioned previosuly is only for one of the door seal guides, if you pull the door seal up you can see the guide and pull it out easily by hand, pictured, is the guide. You can also then remove the guide fromn the seal easily enough by hand also.
P1020361 Date: 14/12/04 With the door seal guide removed I only now have to remove the sleeve from the door, the trouble maker is the black one in the center of the picture. You can remove these by just lifting their lip with a small screwdriver and forcing it into the door.
P1020362 Date: 14/12/04 With the sleeve removed I am now test fitting the actuator, in the picture I am doing it outside the door equivalent to where it will be inside the door, I want it right up against the door edge to get it as far from the window winder as possible.
P1020363 Date: 14/12/04 Once I am happy with its placement I can make some little marks on the door where the screws will need to be drilled for the actuator support. If you look closely at the image you can see two black dots where I have marked for drill points, next I will use a center punch to mark the holes and then drill them.
P1020364 Date: 14/12/04 After the holes are drilled I again screw the screws into the door skin until their heads are protruding on the inside.
P1020365 Date: 14/12/04 Next I will want to remove the knob linkage, as mentioned previously I will first need to unscrew the plastic knob.
P1020366 Date: 14/12/04 I can't easily get inside the door and mark the linkage so what I am going to do is mark the linkage on the outside so that I can simulate its position while I attach the actuator linkage.
P1020367 Date: 14/12/04 With the linkage removed from the door I can now use the mark I added to it to see where it sits inside the door and then line up the angle of it to match how it sits. mI can then get a good look at what will be required to attach the actuator linkage.
P1020368 Date: 14/12/04 After looking at the lock linkage relevent to the actuator I am able to see the distance between them and bend the actuator linkage to suit. You should be able to bend the linkage by hand but you get a sharper more reliable bend by using pliers.
P1020369 Date: 14/12/04 Now I sit the locking nut onto the linkage to see how much space it requires and trim up the actuator linkage to suit.
P1020370 Date: 14/12/04 Next I am filing the linkage to put a flat surface on it for the locking nut screws to lock up onto, this gives the locking nut a very firm hold on the shaft and makes it less likely to slip under load.
P1020371 Date: 14/12/04 I can now pass the trimmed actuator linkage through the tip of the actuator and attach the locking nut, then using the position of the door locking linkage I can bolt the actuator to the linkage. Note that this is all done outside the door, it makes it a little difficult to fit the door locking linkage inside the door but it makes it a lot easier to get a good tight lock between the actuator linkage and the door lock linkage.
P1020387 Date: 16/12/04 Wiring time, the first thing to do is find a 12 volt source under the dash, mine has plenty of such sources due to all the electrical items I have added to the car, you have to make sure though that it is a dedicated 12 volt source and not an ignition source or other source that you will tie into, have a look at your cars wiring diagrams to be sure. After finding a source though don't splice the wire in just yet, you don't need power running through the master control until you are ready to test it all.
P1020388 Date: 16/12/04 With the kick board removed from the drivers side I have run all the wiring for the central locking master control unit down the back of the panel and have it out of the way, when the kick panel goes back on it will be all perfectly hidden. You'll need to find a decent earth for the black wire and then you can finally attach the 12 volt source wire and test your locking.
CentralDiagram Date: 28/12/04 Possible problems:
1) A door tries to lock but fails (or tries to unlock and fails).

Your linkage is either slipping or more likely the door lock is too stiff for the actuator to push, try greasing all your linkages inside the door.

2) A master actuator (front door actuators), when pushed down, pops back up by itself and doesn't lock the doors.

This is caused by the other master actuator being stuck, once again try greasing the linkages inside the door. Another way to test it is to remove the wires from the other door temporarily to see if that fixes it.

3) It's simply not working.

Check your wiring, especially to make sure none of the wires are earthing out.

4) One or more of the doors unlocks when the others lock and visa versa.

Swap the polarity of the wires on the other door(s) e.g. swap the blue and green wires by plugging the green wire from the master into the actuator blue wire and the blue wire from the master into the actuator green wire.
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