It started! Long live smartlock!

spope · 03-10-2005, 12:08 AM

What a weekend.
I decided that will all the niggling electrical problems my car has, that I would upgrade to EB2 Fairmont wiring, complete with smartlock and all the fairmont niceties.
I obtained the looms from 3 different cars at JRs, it was quite amusing though, the guy at the counter didn't beleive it was all from one car. When you have the whole loom pulled out and bundled up, there is a load of wiring.
There were a number of points to this excercise, one being smartlock so that I can run an ED XR6 ecu when I drop the new motor in, two being to get a fairmont bem working properly which I had been unable to do, three to rid myself of one of the most woeful aftermarket alarm installations I have ever seen, and fourth to also finally ditch any remaining blue interior parts.
So, the car was stripped on Friday night. Interior completely removed, dashboard out (which took ages - too many dodgy extra wires)
Saturday morning, a quick trip to JRs to get a column switch and boot lock, and then started removing the engine bay loom. I had already decided this was going to be done without removing the inlet manifold or coolant overflow bottle. If anyone tries this conversion in the future, I would highly reccomend you remove those two parts - would make life a lot easier.
Anyway, engine bay loom was removed by around 3pm on Saturday.
Started laying down the new loom, from back to front. I had previously changed the looms in the two front doors, and as it stands at the moment, the two rear doors aren't plugged in at all.
Also started putting in the engine bay loom, which is quite a tricky job, because being an EA, there is no hole in the firewall for the ABS wiring to go through! So all that extra stuff is just sitting in the engine bay.
Knocked off about 10 on Saturday.
Started early this morning, by finishing the engine bay wiring, including getting under the car to run the trans loom and mpfi loom.
The arrangement around the battery is quite tricky, and I'm not overly happy with it, but it works.
It would appear the EB battery is mounted opposite to the EA battery, which would be fine, except my damn starter motor cable wasn't long enough! So I have some chunky *** cable running from the positive battery terminal to the opposite side with a bus bar arrangement for all the positive power connections to go to. Works well enough for the time being.
Anyway, engine bay wiring was done by around 2 pm. Time to install the dash. That is a fairly straightforward job, except for when you forget to install the blend door motor connection for climate control. So that kinda delayed us a bit.
Anyway, around 3:00 ish, it was time to test everything out. Put the key in, turned to on, everything good. Turned to start, nothing happens! That was a very good sign, smartlock has been wired properly, got no fuel, no crank, nothing.
So, left the key in the on position, and was doing some other bits and peices, and 45 minutes later the smartlock led was flashing and the door locks hadn't changed state.
Figured that maybe you couldn't touch anything electrical at all, so reset everything and left the key at on at 4:01 pm. 24 minutes later, (not 30) the door locks cycled, and the smartlock led went out.
Turned it the start, and the engine started! First time, no issues, no idle problems, no nothing! Just the super smooth idle I have come to expect.
Needless to say, I was wrapped. I then programmed the remote, which worked easy as.
I was still interior less at this stage, so I have spent the entire afternoon putting the car back together (and playing with the electrics.) Got back from a test drive about half an hour ago, and it is all good, except the cruise doesn't work (I suspect a vacuum fault) and the kickdown is a tad harsh, but nothing that I can't live with. Upshifts are fine.
So, I am now super happy, I couldn't stop locking and unlocking the car, playing with the interior light delay, and the dash lights. There are some very nice fairmont features that I was not aware of, like when you turn the park lights on, the LCD displays slowly dim, they don't flick down to dim immediately, the automatic wipers when you use the washers is nice too.
And I'm loving my new interior, I think I might actually like the lighter ED coloured dash - it works really well with my seats and carpet.
Things still to do - fix cruise, rewire GT parkers, fit guard repeaters, get rear door power regs, fit fuel door release, get eb bootlid so remote boot release works.
Sorry for the long post, but it was a long weekend. Would I do it again? Abso-freaking-lutely. Nothing can top the sense of self acheivement I am feeling right now.

**EDIT**
Oh, and no thanks at all go to InitalD. He was totally and utterly useless in the lead up to this modification.

(Just kidding Mick, I couldn't have worked it all out without your help)

InitialD · 03-10-2005, 12:13 AM

Geez Stevo you could have just told me on MSN that it started FFS! :P

Ill be doing the same thing as you now since you played the guinea pig part well this week ;) (here have a cheeseburger for your troubles ;))

Im glad it worked out for you. Just you will need to fill me in with the Wiring around the battery a little more

** edit **
Hopeless aye? Pfft dont make me ring ronno and tell him what you do with those cheeseburgers :P

03-10-2005, 12:19 AM

nice documentary there :P OK micks turn

InitialD · 03-10-2005, 12:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John_xr6

nice documentary there :P OK micks turn

I swear you just volunteered to help pull the rest of my car apart tomorrow night

:

neb · 03-10-2005, 12:20 AM

Good work getting it done.. i remember just putting the wiring in for my power windows was annoying, changing entire car looms would be alot of work

Psycho Chicken · 03-10-2005, 12:36 AM

I wonder how many days til it starts randomly cycling the locks.

Walkinshaw · 03-10-2005, 04:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psycho Chicken

I wonder how many days til it starts randomly cycling the locks.

If its anything like my EL was, the 1st day above 29degrees and watch those locks go baby!

NZ · 03-10-2005, 02:06 AM

Have you used the variable dimness for the dash lights yet? You need the ghia headlight switch for that

Rmyers · 03-10-2005, 06:44 AM

Looms are fun

Good to hear it all worked out! I never have luck getting the car to start the first time after a mod. Even if it was just to install an XH snorkel, it prolly wouldn't start first go for some reason :P

EA2BA · 03-10-2005, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rmyers

Looms are fun

Good to hear it all worked out! I never have luck getting the car to start the first time after a mod. Even if it was just to install an XH snorkel, it prolly wouldn't start first go for some reason :P

Mine usually starts first go

: but now needs a new engine :gren:

Well done Stephen, good to see it all went smooth.

spope · 03-10-2005, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NZ

Have you used the variable dimness for the dash lights yet? You need the ghia headlight switch for that

Yeah. I've actually had variable dash lighting for a while, I hacked together a working-ish NA BEM a while ago, although it never quite worked properly.
The nicest parts of that though are one - you can change the brightness of the LCD displays with and without the headlights on, which is nice, and two, the LCDs fade in and out - as opposed to flicking from bright to dark.
The entire dash got switched over to one out of an EB2 Ghia - so I am using all EB2 switchgear as well.

spope · 03-10-2005, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psycho Chicken

I wonder how many days til it starts randomly cycling the locks.

I seem to recall that being more of an issue with EF/EL than early ones?
It's more likely to blow the central locking fuse before that happens, anyway. Used to drop them on roughly a weekly basis, so I've got my fingers crossed that all new wiring has killed that gremlin.