Alarm removal

This attractive Evo2 has been in storage for 8 years, and I'm bringing it back to life.

I've stripped the front end and changed all the belts etc, that operation starts here https://youtu.be/It7l2QVz4og on YouTube.

The time has come to start the car, but it won't go. There's no fuel to the engine for a start,

so I checked power feed to the pump with a test light, no joy, so I carefully gave the pump a live feed with no life from the pump. The first operation then is to renew the fuel pump, I squeezed it out in one piece and it was a mess, a good clean up and a new pump sorted that out.

With the fuel pump relaced I turned to the electrics, I had renewed the crank position sensor,

I checked this and checked power feed to the coil packs,

all seemed in order. The car only has one absolute pressure sensor, that's ok on this model.

The car still wouldn't start, the starter motor was intermittent also. I began to suspect the immobiliser alarm. There's an alarm fob with the keys, the car makes a noise when that's pressed so there's an alarm box somewhere.

I decided to find it and remove it.

The pump from this Evo was a bit of a mess, the plastic items were very brittle and needed careful treatment.

It was full of crap and the metal support strap was corroded.

I stripped the swirl pot down and gave it a good cleaning.

I replaced the metal strap with a length of perforated metal strip and used my hot air gun and soldering iron to 'repair'

the broken plastic components.

I also sucked out the almost empty fuel tank with a used plastic bleach bottle, and wiped the tank inside, it was quite dirty in there with grit and bodywork repair flakes.

Fuel pump wire split here and wired through alarm

With some digging I found the alarm box stuffed above the ecu, it was in a metal case screwed under the dash, buried in a big nest of wires. I pulled this out and spread the wires into some order.

I removed the front seat for access, the radio, the steering column cover, trans tunnel side panels, gearchange cover, heater controls, fuse box and side plastic sill covers to get to the wiring.

I pulled the carpet up too.

The immobiliser principal is power feed to things is split then routed through the alarm, so I needed to find where the splits were. The first was the big red starter wire from the ignition switch on the steering column,

I cut out the alarm link, rejoined the original wiring and ran some solder into the join,

I then wrapped it well with tape.

The installer had soldered all his joints, and all multiple wiring was wrapped in black tape, this is to make wiring identity more difficult for a thief.

I followed the live red wire from the fuel pump (grey on the wiring diagram!) down to the front door where I found the break, I bridged this and pulled out the alarm connection. Operations continued removing connections to the courtesy lights, removing the alarm siren and central locking controls. I'm no electrician and patience and logical thinking was required here. The battery had of course been disconnected

before starting all this!

This is the fuel pump power feed, rejoining this was

a good encouragement. Other wiring to the back end, tailgate sensor, rear door courtesy light switches and a few other wires were removed and any areas needing protection were taped up.

I finished the job and before putting all the wiring and covers back in place

I decided to try starting the car, I checked all my connections and put 10ltrs fresh fuel in the tank, I connected the battery and checked around with my test light, all was well.

I turned the ignition on and I heard the fuel pump running, on this car it runs for 5 secs then stops until the engine turns, so I switched the ignition on

4 times to fill the new filter and pipes then tried the starter.

It fired up quickly and happily, the motor glad to be running again

after all this time.

So it was a successful operation, old alarms can be a problem, and I can't see them being much use in our modern world.

Thanks for reading, and see you soon.

We're always happy to hear from our readers, if you want to share you car or ideas let us know. integralingham@outlook.com