Electrics Question!

[450Nick]

Hi All,

Just been down working on a couple of niggles on the Chim and I have a couple of questions...

1. If you remove the dash and sit on the passenger seat, there is a small cluster of relays directly in front of you. In this cluster is a tall grey relay made by ford. Does anyone know what this does?

2. When you twist the ball to open the door, the doors are meant to unlock if locked. Mine don't but I have installed a new alarm a while ago and must have missed one wire. Does anyone know which one I should be looking for to add to the unlock circuit? I imagine it comes from one or both of the door locks themselves, but I have no idea where it pops out on the dash. Should it be purple and white like the others? And how does it operate? I assume it earths when the doors open?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[gralin69]

Not 100% but centre knob works mechanically not electrically so turning knob pulls on a cable and releases doors from inside which ever mode doors are in electrically from alarm/remote central locking, same as emergency door release in boot
Graham

[spend]

The only 'tall one' in the aux relay panel would be the heated mirror timer. All the others are std relays and the flasher AFIK

[StardustV8]

gralin69 said:

Not 100% but centre knob works mechanically not electrically so turning knob pulls on a cable and releases doors from inside which ever mode doors are in electrically from alarm/remote central locking, same as emergency door release in boot
Graham

Disconnect the battery and try, obviously either have the window down or roof off depending on how portly you are. What am i on about? it would be hard for anyone to escape out of the window in a chim.

Relay-If its next to the alarm its for the central locking. If its on the platfrom they are associated hazard and indicator lights with the tall one being an electronic flasher unit.

Hope that helps.

[450Nick]

gralin69 said:

Not 100% but centre knob works mechanically not electrically so turning knob pulls on a cable and releases doors from inside which ever mode doors are in electrically from alarm/remote central locking, same as emergency door release in boot
Graham

True but before I changed the alarm (ages ago) the button atop the ball locked the doors, and opening the door using the ball would both unlock and open the door so that you couldn't accidently shut the door and lock yourself out. There are 3 wires that go to the ball its self which are 12v & earth for the green led and lock signal from the button. None of these change state when the ball is turned so I presume the unlock signal has to come from the door lock. This is confirmed by the fact that you used to hear the door unlock as it unlatched mechanically. So my theory is that the unlock signal comes from a switch/sensor in the door latch which momenteraly earths upon unlatching the door. The problem is I'll have to pull up some carpet to have a proper look and may be wrong anyway!

The annoying thing is that the wire I'm looking for is most likely cut and sitting somewhere amongst the loom on my dash. So I just need the colour and approx location to try and find it, but there isn't much info on this particular circuit which is rather annoying.


On the other point, thanks very much Spend for identifying this part! The reason I asked about the tall relay is that when I turn the car off, I often hear it click on and off a couple of times with seemingly very little pattern to its action. I'm not sure why, but one of the feeds to the relay is the door lock/unlock feed. Does anyone know how this circuit actually works as I'm assuming at the moment that it turns off the heater when the car is locked at the moment but that doesn't make much sense... Why isn't it just on the ignition circuit??

[450Nick]

StardustV8 said:

gralin69 said:

Not 100% but centre knob works mechanically not electrically so turning knob pulls on a cable and releases doors from inside which ever mode doors are in electrically from alarm/remote central locking, same as emergency door release in boot
Graham

Disconnect the battery and try, obviously either have the window down or roof off depending on how portly you are. What am i on about? it would be hard for anyone to escape out of the window in a chim.

Relay-If its next to the alarm its for the central locking. If its on the platfrom they are associated hazard and indicator lights with the tall one being an electronic flasher unit.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for that, I'm sure its not the flasher relay though as it doesn't switch with any light on the car but does switch when I'm sitting with the ignition off and nothing else is happening... Only just noticed it, but I was wondering what the noise was as it always clicks twice just after turning the engine off, though again nothing happens when it clicks!

[spend]

450Nick said:

Does anyone know how this circuit actually works as I'm assuming at the moment that it turns off the heater when the car is locked at the moment but that doesn't make much sense... Why isn't it just on the ignition circuit??

Something like:
Mirrors are heated when you turn on the ignition for the period the timer operates. It is defeated if a door is opened then the mirrors are not heated..

[Ribol]

My dash top fusebox has 5 relays in it and one empty space. There is only one tall relay in there and it is the flasher unit. Looking from the passenger seat it is the nearest to you first relay on the left.

The door opener is cable, as already said so doubt problem is alarm related.

[450Nick]

Solved! A quick call to Carl Baker reveals that the door lock button feed actually does both lock and unlock. I had assumed that it just locked and wired it to the alarm lock feed rather than the door relay. Doh!

[Ribol]

450Nick said:

Solved! A quick call to Carl Baker reveals that the door lock button feed actually does both lock and unlock. I had assumed that it just locked and wired it to the alarm lock feed rather than the door relay. Doh!

The button locks electrically (as the alarm does), twisting the knob unlocks mechanically.

[450Nick]

Well it can't do because at the moment, if I press the button the doors lock. Then turning the knob to open the door, if I were to get out of the car and shut the door, then try and get back in via the door mirror buttons, I can't. It's still locked. The only way to get back into the car is to press lock on the keyfob, and then unlock to electrically unlock them. I'm pretty sure this is because the ball is meant to also unlock the doors as it is supposed to flip the lock circuit, rather than simply trigger the 'lock' feed.

[Ribol]

450Nick said:

Well it can't do because at the moment, if I press the button the doors lock. Then turning the knob to open the door, if I were to get out of the car and shut the door, then try and get back in via the door mirror buttons, I can't. It's still locked. The only way to get back into the car is to press lock on the keyfob, and then unlock to electrically unlock them. I'm pretty sure this is because the ball is meant to also unlock the doors as it is supposed to flip the lock circuit, rather than simply trigger the 'lock' feed.

All the button on the knob does is send an lock pulse, just as your alarm unit does via your remote.

When you twist it, depending on which way, it pulls a cable which mechanically pops the door open.

If your car is any different to that then it isn't like mine (2000X).

[blujay10]

450Nick said:

Well it can't do because at the moment, if I press the button the doors lock. Then turning the knob to open the door, if I were to get out of the car and shut the door, then try and get back in via the door mirror buttons, I can't. It's still locked. The only way to get back into the car is to press lock on the keyfob, and then unlock to electrically unlock them. I'm pretty sure this is because the ball is meant to also unlock the doors as it is supposed to flip the lock circuit, rather than simply trigger the 'lock' feed.

Surely if this is right you have a danger of locking your keys in the car.....unless I'm totally confused!
Agree with Ribol, button on ball locks doors (to stop anyone trying to get in at lights etc?)if you press it again it stays locked and will unlock if you turn the ball either way to get out. This way you cant lock the keys in the car....I know its easy to lock them in the boot, but that's another story!

[RGH450]

Not trying to add to the confusion, 'cos not exactly sure how it happened, BUT I embarrassed myself horribly a short while ago by doing exactly that...i.e. locking myself out. I am fairly certain it went like this..
Backed car out of garage, left running, got out to shut garage door, caught button with elbow (realised later), shut car door without thinking “what was that click?”. Result, car running on drive, locked, me outside...nothing would get me in. Tried mirror button nothing, tried spare key fob, and heard locks cycle, door still locked. Got in by using initiative..... turned knob, doors opened a treat. Oh and engine nice and warm but a bit less petrol in tank. Nobody the wiser..until now

[mojox]

Another useful bit of info is that some cars have a deadlocking solenoid which prevents the knob from being turned if the alarm activates