zavetsky@home.com (David Zavetsky) wrote in
<5.0.2.1.0.20001227111121.00a157a0@mail>:
>Any of you guys ever installed a remote car starter/alarm/remote entry
>system before??
>
>The wife gave me one for my Explorer (the Dak is in the garage for the
>winter) and I was considering putting it in......
>
>I consider myself fairly mechanically inclined and have some experience
>with car stereos and smaller alarms...but never did a remote
>start/locks........
>
>The local joints want $150 and up to install.............Would this be $$
>well spent or is this as simple as I *think* it should be??
I have installed a few alarms in my own vehicles; the first was a CodeAlarm
several years ago, the other two were both DEI systems (Viper) with remote
start; one within the past year, and the other within the past few weeks.
Wether paying someone $150 for the install is worth it or not I guess depends
on how much your time is worth. :-) Every install I have done has taken much
longer than I thought it would. The first one, I hadn't done anything more
difficult than changing out a head unit, I did that one over a weekend; the
second one many years later I did over a couple of days, and the last one took
about 10 hours.
Making the actual connections and such isn't too bad, most of the time comes
from tearing the dash apart, locating the proper connections, rubbing the
feeling back into your knees, etc... ;-) Of course, a lot has to do with how
good the documentation provided with your alarm is.
Just to give you an idea of what you might be in for, here's the general
procedure:
Locate a spot for the "brain"; it should be in a place that is not readily
accessible to someone like say, a car thief. :-) Hopefully that location will
allow your wires to reach everywhere they have to. (If not, it usually isn't a
problem extending them, but check your documentation to be sure.) You'll be
tying into the parking light circuit to flash the lights, your door lock/unlock
wires/relays will probably need to run from the brain into at least one of the
doors (that can be fun), you'll need a wire that supplies +12v when the brakes
are on (to shut down the remote start), also you'll need to tap into a
tachometer wire (or a coil wire or fuel injector wire may work, depending on
the system); that's used to let the brain know when the vehicle is running and
also provide over-rev protection. If you can't get an actual AC line that
varies with RPM, you may be able to use any wire that shows +12v when the
engine is running (though you lose over-rev protection this way). Lets see,
what else? Oh, you'll be tying into your main ignition wire(s), as well as the
accessory wire(s) and the starter wire. If you're lucky your Explorer won't
allow the vehicle to start in any gear except park and neutral. If that is the
case, be sure to tie into the starter wire between the ignition and this
safety, otherwise you'll over-ride it. If you tie into the wrong place or your
vehicle doesn't have this feature (doubtful), you'll probably need to add a
safety relay or something. Then there's the hookups to the siren and any LEDs,
switches, buttons, etc. to control the alarm. Sometimes there is an antenna
which you need to put up.
There's usually nothing particularly difficult about an alarm/remote start
install, but they can definitely be time consuming! (When I did the install on
my Dak, I had the entire interior out of the truck at one point.) If you
install it yourself, try to estimate the time it will take, quadruple it, and
add time for work/food/etc. :-) It would be a good idea to do the install
during a time when you will be able to get away with not using the vehicle for
a while (maybe even a few days).
When I did the install in my Dak, I remember thinking, "gee, I think it would
almost be worth paying someone $400 for the alarm and the install!". But, when
it came time to do the Ram, I did it myself and it was a bit easier that time.
I don't mean to be discouraging or anything, there is definitely a lot of
reward in doing something like this yourself; my only words of advice would be
that a FSM would be a good thing to have, be sure you have a multimeter (a test
light won't cut it), preferably one that does AC as well as DC, and don't
under-estimate the amount of time it will take. Oh, and if you've got a hot
tub, plan to spend a few hours in it afterwards. ;-)
---Jon-
.---- Jon Steiger ----- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@twistedbits.net ------. | Affiliations: AOPA, DoD, EAA, NMA, NRA, SPA, USUA; Rec & UL Pilot - SEL | | '92 Ram 150 4x4 V8, '96 Dakota V8, '96 Intruder 1400, '96 FireFly 447 | `------------------------------ http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ----'
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