Love Car Alarms.....not

[Reebmit 51 4 Cars]

Ha don't you just love it when you have a new project, work your way through the jobs then along comes the electric problems to sort.. normally not much of a problem until you see the dreaded CAR ALARM INSTALLER has been there first....scotch blocks, insulation tape, piggy back terminals, twice the number of terminals on one joint, dry joints etc..... ha ha the list goes on. I have to say I hate alarms, sometimes when installed properly they can be tolerable but not very often. You normally find that when something fails it traces back to the alarm or immobilizer... If I need to leave a car for a while and need to immobilize it then the good old Dizzy lead off will suffice. Anyway need my cup of tea now.....rant over...ha ha

[Bogsye 22]

That's the bit of my project I'm dreading! Picking through all that previous 'work of art' wiring to try and get something reliable. I'll probably pull it all out and start again.

 

Positive as I am,, I'd be over the moon though, if that was the stage I was at - the mechanicals old be doe, paint done.....

 

Off to do some 205ing!!! (Hmmmhh, that just sounds wrong....)

 

Brian

[johniban 59 1 Cars]

When im looking a cars for sale, i sometimes avoid cars with alarms fitted, just as i have had bad experiences in the past, broken down miles away from home when the immobilizer just decides to kick in and not work.

 

They are easy to use, but there is much easier ways as you say to disable the car, even a 'secret switch' under the dash that stops power to fuel pump ect.

 

I've spend a good few hours (nearly 6 hours!) removing an alarm from a yamaha r6 with a mate, it just kept going off randomly even when the bike was started, this one however was installed properly, pins were removed from the ecu and replaced with alarm wires. it had piggy back wires jumped onto other wires to block signals ect, crazy stuff

[Reebmit 51 4 Cars]

Yeah just what I'm doing Brian, starting from scratch, always easier in the long run. John, that bike sounded like a challenge! I have a friend who is a great automotive electrician and he has seen some real nightmares! he does have a magic wand though and never gets beaten now matter how bad it is... when we were building supercars/racecars with Ascari he even found errors that were made by one of the big German manufacturers when we were prepping ECU's/Engines etc.... that was amusing as they always pride themselves on their engineering, we had great fun rubbing that in their face ha ha... but to be fair that was a design error not bad workmanship!!!

Edited December 29, 2013 by Reebmit

[mowflow 67]

I don't "think" my car has or has ever had an alarm or immobiliser fitted.... at least I can't see evidence of one either inside the car or in the engine bay. However, I don't have a fecking clue what I would be looking at either way.

 

I'm absolutely bricking it with the electrics. I fearlessly tackled the rust and learned to weld. With the oily bits i'm more worried about not being able to find all the bits i've removed rather than finding it daunting. However, I look at the mass of wires sitting in the right hand side where the battery once sat in my partly dismantled engine bay and I really start to feel a bit sick and wonder if I will ever get this thing back on the road. Lets put it this way, I wired a plug last week and I had to look up what the different coloured wires meant...... I know that's not good.

 

The only good thing here is that I've noticed Brian is in Glasgow, So if he does his first maybe I can persuade him to fix mine

Edited December 30, 2013 by mowflow

[Reebmit 51 4 Cars]

Wiring is a funny thing really, most people seem to be either mechanical or electrical in their ability, there are very few that are really good at both. Simple wiring is not really that hard but it takes time to sit down and understand whats been done and interpret diagrams etc...

[speno 239 2 Cars]

I was caught in this trap yesterday , bloody cobra alarm wires everywhere and Clifford ones too

I have a few spare looms , which I can follow as my guide

[Reebmit 51 4 Cars]

I was caught in this trap yesterday , bloody cobra alarm wires everywhere and Clifford ones too

I have a few spare looms , which I can follow as my guide

Likewise, I have a couple of looms to use if all gets too messy.. its great having spares... wish I had more though!

[Anthony 1,003]

Ah, you've got to love the work of so called "professional" car alarm installers

 

I've had many a rant about it in the past and mused whether there are any other jobs where collectively the standard of work appears to be so poor.

 

If you want a laugh, have a look at the shambles in front of you and compare that to the official guidelines that installs are meant to conform to in order for the system to be certified. I've yet to see a single one that actually is installed correctly, yet they are all signed off and certified.

 

On the bright side, the installs are usually so shoddy that it takes very little time to remove them and make good changes made.

[Reebmit 51 4 Cars]

Ah, you've got to love the work of so called "professional" car alarm installers

 

I've had many a rant about it in the past and mused whether there are any other jobs where collectively the standard of work appears to be so poor.

 

If you want a laugh, have a look at the shambles in front of you and compare that to the official guidelines that installs are meant to conform to in order for the system to be certified. I've yet to see a single one that actually is installed correctly, yet they are all signed off and certified.

 

On the bright side, the installs are usually so shoddy that it takes very little time to remove them and make good changes made.

 

Couldn't agree more Anthony, your last line rings true thank God...the one that really makes me chuckle is when you have to remove the 240v household flex from some of the looms

[arnold80 4]

I just removed my alarm system a few days ago, was dreading what i was going to find under the dash. To my surprise though it was a very tidy job, not a scotch block in site, and only 4 wires connecting it to the loom. Only took 20 mins!

[Blueeyes 3 1 Cars]

To be fair I have a Clifford concept 300 with most optional extras fitted to my 1987 205 I got done over by three blokes for my car, even with the keys they couldn't start the car because of the immobiliser so on this instance win win for Clifford alarms.

[johniban 59 1 Cars]

i have a cheap immobilizer, battery isolater switch hidden, cuts main battery feed and fuel pump feed, best of all, the car still looks completely standard as its hidden out of the way but is in arms reach

[daza2020 2]

I know the feeling I've an entire central locking system that was dealer fitted I think and no longer works which I'm nearly done ripping out, there's also the hack job of a electric window system fitted that's in the middle of being ripped out and rewired to a more civilized state and in the back some sort of telephone or blinker box.

[Reebmit 51 4 Cars]

i have a cheap immobilizer, battery isolater switch hidden, cuts main battery feed and fuel pump feed, best of all, the car still looks completely standard as its hidden out of the way but is in arms reach

My favourite type of immobilization John, perfect, used on many cars before

 

 

I know the feeling I've an entire central locking system that was dealer fitted I think and no longer works which I'm nearly done ripping out, there's also the hack job of a electric window system fitted that's in the middle of being ripped out and rewired to a more civilized state and in the back some sort of telephone or blinker box.

Will be so much better when done, hope all goes smoothly

[ginger205 1]

When I took the dash out of mine recently I was expecting all manor of horrors but I was quite lucky, my only complaint was why they left all the cables so long, looked like a bowl of black spaghetti had been thrown behind the facia panels!

 

I MIGHT shorten some but hell, if it's not broke and all that!