Electric door locks

[Ford-o-phobic]

OK well my 84 without electric door locks is starting to annoy me. What are some ways to convert? Can i just get the actuaters and comp from another car? Or how about an after market kit?

[Razorback1980]

There are a gazillion kits out there and any will work. I was looking at one from O'Reilly just the other day for $35...I am not sure if it included that actuators or not. I was looking for my Grand Prix as the stock one only works occasionally. The hardest part would be bolting the actuators in the doors. If you went to a Porsche recycler and purchased a set of factory actuators with mounting brackets and such, the worst would be over. The rest would be mouting the receiver and then it's just wiring.

[nightheart]

i bought an aftermarket kit for 120, i think. came with the actuaters and everything to convert to power and keyless entry. setting actuaters properly can be a pain, and hiding about a million new wires isn't fun either. took me about an afternoon, but i ended up pulling it back out a year later. the one actuater slipped and my doors wouldn't lock, and the wiring blocks were near imposable to hide under the dash.

I'll put it back in sometime, but its pretty far down my project list right now, but all in all, its a pretty straightforward, simple job.

[Ford-o-phobic]

I will be redoing my carpet soon so could i just run the wires under the carpet? And do those cheap ebay kits actually work?

[nightheart]

It's not just the wires, but the control boxes. The kit I used had a box to convert to power locks, where if you unlocked one door, the other unlocked. (I'm planning on adding power switches when I get off my lazy butt and do this) and a separate box for the remote entry. The wires just run from your door locks to the boxes and a power and ground wire. I'd tried mounting the boxes under the dash and kept bumping them with my knee.

Anyway, I talked to a salesman at a local high end car audio store about all this. He quoted me a price off 400 dollars for the install and kits, hence doing it myself. The bottom line is there are cheap kits and better kits. The actuators tend to fail after some time on the cheaper kits. About 10 years ago, I had circuit city install power locks on a car, at less than 200 dollars, and the actuators failed after a year.

Do they work, yes, are the cheap ebay kits worth it, not in my opinion.

The only really hard part about running the wires is getting the things to feed through the door to the dash. I undid the plastic pieces hiding the wires for the power windows and fed them through there with a coat hanger and some swearing.

[Baza]

As luck would have it I am 2/3 the way through installing a late model central locking system, into my 82 n/a.
What you have to decide is how far you want to go if you are looking to do it the easy way, go and get a quality aftermarket system installed then you get what you pay for and it only takes a couple of hours.

Then there is the hard way collect all the genuine parts you need including the wireing harness
1. script door handles with micro switches
2. late model door latches as they have a ball fitting for the actuators
3. Late model actuators with linkage and bracket
4. control modual p/n 911.618.113.01
5. Wireing harness or all the plug connections

I cant tell you any more because I am up to the wiring installation now
see photo's. Cant seem to down load photos I will start a new thread and post photos there.
Barry