9 replies to this topic

[Tomf]

Since i have been driving i have thought that a central locking kit would be really helpful, so i have had a look around to see if you can buy kits for minis and i have found a few places but the cheapest i can find is about £60. But i have had a look on ebay and seen that you can get a universal kit for about £25. I have has a look through the forum to find a way of fitting them and this is the best that i could find.



I then found this universal kit on ebay:



So from what i can work out from the first image that i found on the site it should go something like this:



So from the pic it looks really straight forward. I would basically just put the locking motor at the bottom then join this to a length of pivoted metal and this is then joined to the piece of metal that joins to the hand lock mechanism.

I just want to check that it will be this straight forward. If so then i will order one and fit it to my mini as it doesnt look very difficult.

Please add your feedback and tell me what mistakes i have made.

Thanks

Tom

[Dan]

Yes it is just that simple. Although I wouldn't use a strip of ally, some thin steel would be better. The pre-stiffened strip of steel, including a pivot with mounting plate and pivoted motor linkage with the correct end fitting, which is already drilled and formed to shape and comes with templates to drill the mounting positions is what you are paying for in the bespoke kit. Having fitted the kit myself I would say it is worth the extra £35 simply to avoid the hassle. Also the kit comes with good quality motors which the generic kits don't tend to use. You can of course do it all yourself if you like as has been done in the photo you provide but the kit is a lot easier.

You'll need to work out what stroke length your motor requires once you have it and then work out where to put the pivot on the linkage and how long to make it based on the travel of the door private lock linkage itself. There's quite a lot of force generated by these little geared motors and that coupled with the leverage of the linkage is why I think you should avoid ally. The install in your photo has the pivot a lot lower down the door than the bespoke kit, presumably this is using a motor with a shorter stroke. Also the motor is a long way forward, leading to a lot of potential flex in the drive rod. Then you have to consider where to connect it to the private lock linkage so as to avoid the nut and bolt connection or your new linkage itself fouling on the door pressing as the hole there isn't very big.

All quite fiddly and detailed but so long as you take it all into account you should be able to come up with a reliable system which will work well.

Getting the wires into the doors is fairly simple and if you search the site you should see a few different cable routes demonstrated as we have discussed this before. Just remember that you need to get 5 fairly heavy gauge wires through whatever tubing you do decide to use, and these motors use a lot of power. Only briefly but it's still a lot.

Also consider whether the motors you use will be compatible with any alarm you may have.

[Tomf]

Thanks for that Dan it was very helpfull . I think that i will go for the universal kit and see where i go with it. I think that you are right about the ally strip. The picture is just a pic that i had found using the search on here and the recomended that so i didnt edit the txt. The only bit that i can think of being hard is, working out the pivot angles and where i shold trace the wires through the door but i cant see this being a really hard job really, so i think that i will orger one of the kits off ebay and see how it goes.

When i do it ill take pics of what i did and what i did wrong so that if other people want to make one of these from the iniversal kits they can folow that.

[Dan]

You shouldn't need to calculate any angles really. Just find the stroke length of the motor, the stroke length of the private lock linkage and work out the 'gear' ratio you need the lever to provide. Then see how long you lever will be and work out where to put the pivot on it to give the correct ratio. The linkage in the bespoke kit has its pivot in the middle of the large void halfway up the door, on another strap that you bolt across the hole. The exact spacing of yours will depend on the motor you have. Then see how close you can mount the motor to the lever and still allow it full travel so that you can make the connecting rod as short as possible to avoid it flexing.

[Bungle]

i used the kit form moss on my mini

it fitted really well and was easy to install

[Geehawk]

I used a universal kit from Maplins, £14 at the time.

Been working fine for a couple of years now.

I found that fitting it was easy, but fine tuning it to lock/unlock every time was the time consuming bit.

For instance with the door latch triggered with a screw driver it locked/unlocked fine, but with the door actually closed it didn't

Follow Dans instructions and that picture and you cant go wrong.

by the way I used ally strip and as I say its been working fine.

[Bass Man]

I have central locking and central screen wiping

I can reach all the doors and the windows from the drivers seat

[Awlred Drives a Quant]

I used a universal kit from Maplins, £14 at the time.

Been working fine for a couple of years now.

I found that fitting it was easy, but fine tuning it to lock/unlock every time was the time consuming bit.

For instance with the door latch triggered with a screw driver it locked/unlocked fine, but with the door actually closed it didn't

Follow Dans instructions and that picture and you cant go wrong.

by the way I used ally strip and as I say its been working fine.

http://www.maplin.co...o...J&DOY=21m12 is that the kit you mean?

[Geehawk]

Yep. Thats the one.

As I said, when I bought it, it was on special for £13.99

Add in the cost of the ally strip and my central locking cost less than 16 quid

Edited by Geehawk, 21 December 2006 - 05:46 PM.

[Matt]

sorry to bump this.. but did anything happen to this? and could anyone give me any advice...