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Manual to Power Door Locks in 5 hours. $53.06

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Well I just got piss tired of leaning over to open the door for anyone in my passenger seat, and tired of going back to the car to make sure I locked it, and tired of touching the door locks, scratching the outside with a key every night, all of that. So I decided to get power door locks. The local shop wanted 1400. If I had 1400 I wouldn't have an NT. I decided I had the technical skills to do this myself. You can do it too.

Heres what you will need:

Tools:
Pliers (to cut wires)
Needlenose pliers if you got big hands
Wire crimper or soldering iron (whichever you prefer)
Screwdrivers
A size 10 socket and wrench

Thats all you need in tools. Now if you know how to use those tools, you can do this.

Supplies:
Ebay power door locks (2 actuators and 1 relay with wiring) = 45.98 Shipped
Electrical tape = 1.06 at the 99 cent store
Wire crimps or solder = had them
Extra 18 gauge wiring= $6, my kit came with enough to reach the driver door, but definetly not enough for the passenger, I stopped at radioshack and bout 45' of 15' rolls red black and green. So it depends on the kit you get.

Ok, you are now ready, and all you need is 5 hours. If you are doing this, plan it on a nice day. Today was beautiful outside, I parked in the driveway, put on some music and it really wasn't that bad. My kit came with a french manual, and I am not french, so I hooked it up using the true and tested trial and error method. This took a lot of time. I am here to make your job less time consuming. The kit from ebay was ordered on Friday in the AM. I got it Monday morning <11 AM. Thats great service.
 
Ok here is the kit, I am using the picture from Ebay because its just clearer, everything pictured in the image is exactly how I got it, but in small bags.

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Ok, first off you have to remove the door panel. There are 4 screws, then 2 hidden ones. One is behind the Handle to open the door. The other is inside under a small clip in the handle that you use to close the door with. After you get all the screws off (6), there are only clips holding the panel on. Just grab and pull lightly until they pop off. The trick is to do them one by one, not rip the whole panel with all your strength.

Now you should see a plastic film covering the door, and black goo around under the plastic. You need to peel back the plastic layer off the left half of the door. I started from the top left and pulled down letting the goo stretch, break, then retract on its own. You dont need to go past the center foam piece that seems to be stuck onto the metal.

Ok so take an actuator, a long thin rod from the kit, the mounting bracket, a small golden clip, the 3 silver screws and the 3 gold screws. This part may seem confusing, but follow with me. Take the long rod, and push it through the actuator's white loop until you hit the 90* bend on the other end. That is it for the actuator. Now take the new assembly you just made, and line it up in the door like the picture below.

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You are going to need to drill 2 holes. I missed on my first try because I did not leave enough room for the actuator to move freely. So I had to uninstall and redrill another hole a little bit over. The top hole should be drilled in that little piece of metal where I drilled. It is the best location I could find and I tried almost a dozen positions. Screw in the bracket, then screw in the actuator using the last of the silver screws.

Ok now use the 3 gold screws and the small gold clip. You have to slide the small hole over the thin rod that came with the kit, and the bigger hole goes over the factory thing rod that controls the lock/unlock state of the door. Screw it in where it seems it wont hit anything when it moves. Feel free to move the actuator arm to make sure there is enough clearance.
 

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Now that you have the driver door installed, you can go ahead and repeat the installation on the passenger door. I did not do this yet, but it should be the same process.

Step 2: The Relay

At first, just the word relay scared me, but relays are fun. Its simply a small box, with a circuit board inside, that you plug wires into, and it makes things work. The relay in my kit was a small yellow box, about 3x3. It came with 2 harnesses, a small led, and a small switch, which I installed later on into my dash.

Anyway about the relay. I did a trial and error type thing to figure out which wire did what. There are 2 +12v, the red and purple/black wire. Nice thing is they both come with 15amp fuses attached to the wire. They both need to be connected to a +12V source. I did not want to drill into my firewall, so I just tapped into my radio's power source from the factory harness. There are 3 grounds. The black wire, the brown/black wire, and the white/black wire. The blue/black and the green/black go to the actuator respectively matching the actuators blue and green wire. There are also yellow(ignition), white(parking light flash), orange(starter disable) and red/white (auxilary). Ill explain what each does later, I did not use these.

Simply plug the 2 harnesses into the relay. You have to strip each wire, and extend the positive lead. I connected the purple one to the red one after the fuse on the red wire. Then extended the red wire under the carpeting of the driver's pedals, up into the headunit compartment area. From there I tapped into the factory harness before the radio harness began. I have not noticed any problems from this. Someone told me it stresses the radio, but this is not true since there would be the same stress if I pulled the 12V from the battery.

I grounded the 3 wires to the closet bolt I saw. It was one of the steering column bolts, which I loosened, then slipped the wires underneath and retightened. A spade terminal would work nice here, but I did not have one on hand.

The green and blue wires needed only about 12" extensions, compared to the +12v which needed almost 30". I slipped the wires up from underneath the steering wheel into the little tube that runs from the car into the door for the speaker wire. I had to loosen and remove a screw from that assembly to shift it over and make the wires fit. This was a pain as there is no room there, barely enough for fingers, let alone a screw driver. I used a long piece of solder and made a hook shape, then slipped it in from the outside, attached the wires and pulled it back out. It worked like a charm, but I had to remove the tube running from the door to the car. And it was hard getting it back in. I did it again for getting the wires through the tube and into the door.

After you have the green and blue wires within distance to connect them to the actuator wires, open the door completely out. If the wires still have room, crimp them there. I had a small problem with crimping one of them as it broke off. I just soldered and electrical taped it. The other connecter crimped fine.

Now that you have everything grounded, positive lines on, and actuator armed. Hit the lock or unlock key. The actuator should wait about a second then snap the lock shut. Play around with it to make sure it works I did lock/unlock about 20 times. Both to test and for the sheer enjoyment of having done my own locks.

Its not over yet. You still have to put everything back together. I decided to clean up the wires first and start from inside the car. I had to remove the inside center console and the piece under the dash to the right of the drivers right foot when driving. I installed them both, ran the wires underneath the carpet, ziptied the wires I didn't use and my cockpit went from Star Trek to Box cart. I tucked the relay behind the fuse box.

Pop the panel back on and screw everthing in.

The hard part is done.

Next is the fun part.
 
http:// Ok now you got your doors all powered up they work fine, time to install the led and the red button switch. I installed them into the power mirror panels because I dont have nor do I want power mirrors. I basically drilled 2 holes and put the led in one and the switch in another. The cool thing is, when your doors lock, the led flashses like an alarm system. I fooled my friend who just graduated from a mechanic's school. Even the relay looks like one from an alarm system.

As I mentioned before, there are quite a few wires I didn;t use.

The yellow wire from the kit is the ignition wire. You have to cut into the factory ignition wiring harness, but when you turn your car on, the locks lock up. And when you turn it off, the doors unlock. Sounds cool but I dont need this option.

The white wire is for the horn to beep or the lights to flash. I didn't wire this because I simply didn't know how. I will figure it out and add to the article at a later date.

The orange wire is the starter disable. It wont let the car start if the door is unlocked. It is kind of pointless, because if someone is trying to steal your car, they can just lock the door and start it. Might be useful is the person stealing it couldn't figure out the door lock.

And the red/white wire is an auxilary input. I will eventually wire this to my hatch and make it a hatch release. I am not willing to put the money needed to make a hatch release right now. It is approx. 60 off ebay for 2 doors and hatch poppers. and the Hatch release kit is about 35.

If there are any questions, go here.

Sorry the pictures got messed up, the last one is the hook I made from the lead wire, the other are in reverse order.
 
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