Power Door Locks on a Porsche 944

Revision 1.02    10-2-1999

Tips

• Decide how you are going to run the wires first!
• Them Germans like using weird materials (tar paper?) for insulation and sound deadening. Wear gloves and keep your hands gunk-free.

The Actuator Kit

The actuator kit was purchased from "Sound Conceptions" in New Jersey (on the web at autotoys.com) for $44 plus $11 shipping.  As it went from New Jersey to New York, $11 shipping is unreasonable.   Also note that their return policy is "NO RETURNS, NO EXCHANGES, NO CREDITS/REFUNDS".

I saw a power door lock kit on the Radio Shack website for $39.  It well might be the same thing. 

It included two actuators, a small "control box", a wiring harness, as well as assorted hardware for installation.

An instruction sheet showed wiring and actuators.

The actuators are coupled together so that if you push one down, the other will automagically go down as well.  Same goes for pulling up.

To electronically lock or unlock, you connect the brown and purple wires together.  Doing a little investigating with a multimeter, I discovered that when the doors are locked, 12V is present on the brown wire, and when the doors are unlocked, 12V is present on the purple wire.

This can be used to add a "doors locked" light to the system somewhere.

Door Panel Removal

Unscrew the door handle, take out the speaker, remove two door panel screws on either side, remove the five or six screws along the bottom of the pocket, remove the three screws holding the armrest in...check to make sure all the screws have been removed, then lift the door panel up and out. Disconnect the door panel switches and set it aside.

Running the wires

The control box needs 12V and ground.   There are five wires running to each actuator. 

Fortunately, the holes in the doors and body are large and easy to work through.  I used a thin brass wire to fish the wires out into the doors.  You have to pull the carpet up on the inside and remove the funky German sound deadening to get the wires out to the doors.

I couldn't figure how to properly get the plastic piece on "top" of the hood release lever to go back in.  Does it snap on somehow?  Hmm....

Were I to do it again, I would try to fish the wires behind there without removing that top piece.

I covered the five-wire bundle with 1/2" slit wire loom.

The Actuators

The actuators were installed below the lock, by drilling two holes in the door panel (in the driver's side door panel I drilled three holes -- one was misplaced!).

The actuators were mounted with the included Phillips head screws using (non-included) nylon standoffs to space the actuator out from the door panel a half-inch or so.

Bending the control wires was difficult.  I had to put z-bends in them to clear the original mechanism.

The actuators have more throw then is necessary to move the door locks.  Getting them properly adjusted took a few tries.

Is there more?

Yes, I'm going to add some type of keyless entry system soon!