Installing An Aftermarket Boot Solenoid

[Crescent205 11 1 Cars]

Hi Guys, Has anyone got any pictures on how they've mounted a cable operated boot popper to a 205 tailgate? I spent ages today offering the motor and the bracket up but just cant figure out the best place.

[Henry Yorke 269 3 Cars]

Difficult to mount a cable operated one, but I did it electronically in the past by fitting a boot CL solenoid vertically and then drilling a hole in the brass lock striker so the solenoid pushed or pulled the hasp and released the boot. Mine was controlled by and electric window switch in the centre console. It was about 15 years ago that I did it, so I have not got any pictures of how it was done, but the net result was this.

 

 

[Henry Yorke 269 3 Cars]

Ingredients:

Fibreglass
boot panel: £25 from Autofive

205
Central locking boot solinoid: £5 from a breakers

Speaker
wire: 15p per metre

205
Electric window switch: £3 from a breaker

Coathanger:
From my wifes wardrobe

Spade
Connectors (Male and female): 5p each

Body
Filler and Metal Gauze

Sandpaper

Metal plate

Paint

Multimeter / Test
Light

Recipe:

1. With a knife, slide behind the
   Peugeot, 205 and Model badges on the boot. This is just a sticky foam padding
   and you can get the badges off easily. Don't pull them as they have a tendancy
   to snap as the plastic is brittle.

2. This
   will reveal the sliding clips which hold the black plastic in the tailgate. Slide
   off these fastners and remove crap plastic.

3. This
   will leave the lock and 4 studs showing. If you chicken out here, you can:

   1. Angle grind
      off the 4 studs

   2. Wash
      and T-Cut the whole boot (The paint may be a different colour as it hasn't seem
      light before)

   3. Blob
      some primer over the bare metal and leave to dry.

   4. Put
      some double sided sticky foam onto the backs of your old badges after you have
      spend hours scraping off the old stuff!

   5. Re-apply
      the badges, covering up the primer

   6. Voila
      a late spec boot with a lock!!

4. Prise
   off the inside tailgate panel using a forked trim remover (recommended) or a wide
   bladed screwdriver. Tip: To avoid
   scratching with a screwdriver, put some electrical tape over the blade and take
   your time, prising as close to the fastening as possible. Again these can easily
   snap and cause rattles if rushed.

5. Unbolt
   the lower latch (the bit that actually fastens onto the bottom part of the boot).

6. 
   

   Remove the connecting rod that goes
   to the lock mechanism (if there is one, I can't remember).

7. 
   

   Pull out the big metal slide spring
   clip which holds the lock mechanism in place.

8. If
   the car has central locking already, disconnect the rod that goes to the solinoid
   (90 degrees from the latch rod). Tip:
   To make life easier, remove the two hexagonal headed 8mm screws that hold
   the solinoid in place. You can then wiggle the rod off easier as they are bent
   at the ends and hook in to an eye on the end of the solinoid.

9. 
   

   You now have a boot with no lock,
   no latch and no panel. I would advise that you rebolt on the latch (only 2 bolts),
   remove the parcel shelf, drop your back seats and have a play with the lock mechanism
   so you understand how it works, what force needs to be applied in what direction
   onto the latch to make it open. This will help you figure out how the solinoid
   needs to push to release the boot.

10. Drill
    a hole through the centre of the latch in the plate where the lock mechanim used
    to push down to release the latch. Warning:
    This is much harder than you think. The latch mechanism is brass and doesn't
    take too kindly to drill bits. I took mine to work in the engineering department
    where it went through a couple of industrial drill bits on a bench drill. I would
    figure out how to drill this before you start the task . Also drill a small hole
    first and then open it up until it is about the diameter of one of the lock operating
    rods you removed (2.5mm maybe?) Your coathanger will go through here eventually.

11. 
    

    Once you have your hole sorted (if
    you pardon the expression!!) you will need to reposition the solinoid so it pushes
    and pulls in a vertical axis as opposed to the original horizontal way (i.e spin
    it through 90 degrees). Disconnect the solinoid from the central locking wiring
    loom if you have it. Tape up this connection somewhere in the boot as it is not
    needed.

12. There
    is a piece of the inner metal framework of the boot that is directly above the
    lock mechanism. You will need to mount the solinoid behind this, but you need
    the 2 holes first in order to acheive this.

13. Position
    the solinoid roughly where you think it will sit the best, taking into account
    the position of the electrical wiring connections and the fact that there is goint
    to be a wire going to the latch from it.

14. With
    a nail or longer screws possible, mark where you need to drill two new holes on
    the framework. Tip: If you put masking
    tape on the framework first, your marks show up more clearly and when you drill
    you have less chance of the drill bit slipping.

15. Alternatively
    make a template of the hole pattern on the solinoid and make your marks that way.

16. 
    

    Drill two holes the same diameter
    as the original solinoid holes which should be visable on all models. We are going
    to use the original screws still. Warning:
    Put something behind where you are drilling, like a piece of wood, or limit
    how deep your drill can go because as the drill bit breaks through the framework,
    it suddenly goes deeper and can hit the boot skin, making a pimple on your boot
    (I did!!) When you have a very smooth boot, this will stand out like a sore thumb!
    I got Dent Devils to remove it.

17. Before
    mounting the solinoid, we need to sort out the wiring. The solinoid just has two
    pins that makes things easy. When there is no power to it, the solinoid will be
    loose, so you could pull it in and push it out manually. However when power is
    applied, it will either push in or pull out, depending on which way round the
    current is flowing (i.e. if you swap the +ve and -ve connectors over on the solinoid,
    it will work the other way. We need to get controlled power to it somehow. The
    way we will do this is to use a push switch, rather than an on / off switch as
    the latter would leave your boot open until you switched it back to off.

18. 
    

    This is where the electric window
    switch comes in. On the GTI, XS and probably other models, they have a fancy interior
    light surround with an additional directional light. They also have two black
    switch blanks that are not used on either side. It just so happens that an electric
    window switch will fit in here, giving you stealth, easy fitting and that factory
    look!!! This is where we need to run power to and on to the boot.

19. 
    

    Starting at the boot, loosen the
    flexible rubber wiring connector at the top of the tailgate.

20. 
    

    Feed your speaker wire down the hole
    and coax it down the side of the rear window and pull it through towards the solinoid.

21. 
    

    Now it is time to get the wire into
    the car towards the interior light. This is easiest to do if you losen the head
    lining so you have some space to mavouver the wire.

22. This
    is done by popping off the tailgate mounting bolt covers and the front and rear
    grab handles. The screws for these are located under covers at each end of the
    handle.

23. Possibly
    you might need to loosen the door rubbers at the tops to allow some play to get
    the wire through.

24. Pop
    out the interior light. Maybe remove the sunvisors and fastenings to make life
    easier.

25. Thread
    the wire through until it appears at the hole by the interior light. Tip:
    Before you chop your coathanger up for the solenoid rod, open it up so it
    is nearly straight and tape the end of the speaker wire to the end of the coathanger.
    This allows you to poke it places and you can grab it at the other end.

26. 
    

    Once you have the wire through, there
    are a couple of ways of obtaining power.

    1. You
       can route another wire down to the fusebox where, with your test lamp, you can
       find and earth and a fused 12v positive and connect it up that way. This wire
       would run down the A pillar on the passengers side to the top of the glovebox.

    2. 
       

       Alternatively you can utilise the
       constant live and earth that run to the interior light and tap into that, again
       using a test light to find out which it is.

27. The
    earth does not need to go through the switch, but straight to the solinoid.

28. 
    

    The positive will need a wire sensibly
    spliced into the 12v lamp feed, and goint to the to the switch with a sheilded
    female spade connector on the end. The positive wire to the boot will need another
    heilded female spade connector on it.

29. As
    for the connections on the switch, I'm afraid I have forgotton what the 5 pins
    do. I'm guessing that the central pin (3) is where the main power feed goes to
    and the end pins (1 and 5) are the outputs. Of course you will only need one of
    these outputs.

30. Once
    this is all connected up, attach two spade connectors to the tailgate end of the
    speaker wire and connect them to the solinoid.

31. Press
    the switch and see which way the solinoid is working. You will need it to push
    down / out when the switch is pressed. If it is pulling in, then swap the wires
    round on the solinoid.

32. Mount
    the solinoid in the boot and cut a piece of coathanger a bit longer than the right
    length to stretch between the latch and the eye of the solinoid when it is pushed
    in, bending the ends over with pliers. You might have to bend this round quite
    a bit on the latch to stop it slipping off.

33. Bend
    this new rod so the solinoid will push on the latch in the right direction to
    make it open. This will take some fine tuning so be patient. Tip:
    Lubricate your lock so it moves more freely and is more likely to open when
    the solinoid pushes.

34. Once
    you have got this right, put all the interior back together, connect the flexible
    fastner between the tailgate and shell, tape any lose wires securely.

35. 
    

    For security reasons, it might be
    preferable to bond / rivet a metal plate over the old lock hole, so no-one can
    stab a screwdriver through your rear panel to open the boot.

36. 
    

    Now for the rear panel. With filler
    I put the metal gauze over the hole where the lock ahould be and fixed that in.

37. 
    

    Carefully build up filler in the
    whole until it is just proud if the surface. This then needs flatting down so
    it becomes smooth. I tried this numerous times and couldn't get it smooth, so
    as I had done most of the hard work, I took it to a bodyshop where they finished
    it off, sprayed it and bonded it onto the back of my car. If you do this yourself,
    you will need clamps etc. It cost me £40 for them to do that and fit the
    metal plate on, and that was a Peugeot garage!!

[Crescent205 11 1 Cars]

wow thanks for the in depth reply Henry! My tailgate is already smoothed and all the internals have been binned, i'm just finding it really difficult to mount the solenoid in such a tight space!

[Henry Yorke 269 3 Cars]

I found a write up on my PC from and article I did for the Peugeot Sport Club years ago so it was a cut and paste!

 

I found it dead easy at 90 degrees from the original position. The original solenoid is quite compact. The hard part was drilling the brass catch

[Crescent205 11 1 Cars]

Done!! After many unsuccessful attempts at the 'cable solenoid' kit i decided to scrap it. I then noticed i had 2 extra central locking solenoids left over form a remote kit i purchased for the car. The universal solenoid fitted a treat in the tailgate and even used the rod that came with it.