Adding Power Door Locks

[motoservdog]

Anbody know where I can find a How-To about adding power door locks on my 95 Camaro? I did a search and didn't come up with any. Has anybody on here done this, if so, a tutorial with parts list would be great. Thanks in advance.

[landj]

Re: Adding Power Door Locks

I did this with my old J-body. All I can say that will be useful is don't buy the cheapest kit, they don't have the power to move the door locks with all the friction that's in the slide switch style door locks.

[tkoforpresident]

Re: Adding Power Door Locks

my advice is don't get power locks unless you really need to, mine are going on me and it's a waste of $. Just reach over and lock the door by hand, no biggy. :)

[96firebird311]

Re: Adding Power Door Locks

It is in our FAQ at the top of the stereo section.... but the pics stopped working :(

Upgrading Manual to Power Locks(dz)
I have a 97 Camaro Base. For the power locks, I purchased the A1 Electric power locks kit.

This one: http://www.a1electric.com/mes.htm

Getting the door panel off isn't hard. There are 6 screws total:

2 on the black portion of the panel where the door handle is
3 on the door itself
1 for the mirror

Once you gets those screws out, lift the door up and it'll come off.

Next you have to take the weather / noise plastic thing off. It's just a sheet of plastic. Take it off carefully so that you can put it back on. Try and keep as much rubber as possible on the plastic piece.

Once that's off, I recommend taking the speaker off. There are 3 screws that attach the speaker to a plastic holder, which is connected to the door. Just take off the 3 screws from the holder, turn it counter-clockwise and the speaker will come out. Make sure you detach the cable that attaches to the speaker.

Once you have that out, do the same to the other side.

After the doors are done, remove the panels underneath the dash. On the drivers side, there are 2 panels. I believe there are 4 screws on the top panel, which is right underneath the steering wheel. The 2nd panel, which is above the pedals, I think only had 2 little rivets to pull out.

The passenger side had 2 rivets on the top of it underneath the glove compartment. Then there's a metal piece down near the persons feet.

Once all that's off, you're ready to wire everything up. The wire will stretch all the way from the end of the passenger door to the end of the drivers door. Put all the wires through the rubber thing that goes between the door and the body. It's a pain in the ***, but it's possible. Use a wire hanger to get through first, and then wrap the hanger around the cables and pull them through.

Once you get them through the door, then cut the wires and attach the metal connectors. Trust me, it's much easier to do this after the wires are through the door rather than before.

Now you have to find a place to mount the power lock motor. Here's a picture of where I put mine:



That is the drivers side door. Put it in the same spot on the passenger door.

Once you have the motors in place and the rods connected, make sure both motors are in the 'lock' position. It doesn't matter which position really, but they should at least be in the same one. If you haven't already, connect the long span of wires to a power and a ground. The power has to be constant power from the battery. There's plenty of places to pull this from in the car. Make sure to also use the fuse that came with it. Just cut the loop of wire in the fuse, attach one end to the long span of wires and the other end to your power input.

Once you have the wires with ground and power attached, pull the fuse out of its holder so the system has no power.

Attach the cables to the left and right side motors, put the fuse back in, and watch how your masterpiece comes to life.

Now comes a really important step: Make sure that all your cables are secured down. I ended up drilling holes in the inside door panel (it's fiberglass) alongside the bottom. Here's are some pictures of where I drilled the holes and used the zip ties to hold the cable down:




This is vital because once the door panel is back on, you don't want to have to pull it off because the cable got stuck to your window or something. Make sure everything is fastened down good.

Once all that's done, put everything back on in reverse order and you're set.
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Don't know how much that kit costs, but you can buy the actuators from Circuit City for like $40/each. Probably much cheaper online, but again, I don't know how much they're asking for that kit.

[motoservdog]

Re: Adding Power Door Locks

thanks 96firebird. thanks for the info and advice tk and landj. i'll post updates when i get this done.