Shaved door wiring

Hi all.  I've ghosted this site for a while to primarily learn how to do fiberglass.  However, I'm trying to wire in a set of solenoids for my shaved door handles.  I *thought* I had everything together this weekend, but when I hit the button, nothing.  Any help would be appreciated.  What I have is as follows:

12V to the 86 and 30 tabs on the relay - I took one power wire from the battery and spliced it to get 12V at each terminal (Confirmed by my meter) instead of running two separate power wires

The 87 terminal goes to the solenoid which is a self-grounding unit via the mounting screws.

The 85 terminal *should* be the input from my alarm/remote.  I've got a Clifford Matrix 3 unit, and I'm assuming one of the channel outs should be the activation lead for this terminal.  I connected channel 2 out to the terminal on the relay

The 87a terminal is not used.

When I hooked everything up and nothing happened, I direct wired a switch instead of using the remote, and nothing happened there, either.

Thanks,

Dan

If you touch terminal 85 to a good ground does that relay click and then on the other one doing the same thing does it click ?. If so then I would venture to guess even though the solenoid is self grounding where it is at it is not grounded or the output on the control system is not a momentary ground but a momentary positive. To check the ground on the solenoid, run a jumper wire from the mounting bracket of the solenoid to ground and see if it works. If it does, run a ground from the solenoid into the interior and to a clean bare metal spot under the dash or firewall.

I would also seperately fuse each relay this way if one assembly fails and blows it's fuse the other side should still work. If one fuse protects both doors it only takes one to fail and then both become inoperative.

Jim

Thanks for the response.  I did think about the solenoid not being grounded properly, so I did run a jumper from the mounting bracket to a known good ground.  Still no luck.  What I'm thinking now is that the relay itself needs to be grounded.  The unused 87a terminal shows 12V with everything wired in the way the schematic shows.  The only other thing I can think of is that the output I'm using (the Matrix channel via remote) is not the output I *should* be using.  Also, when I hook up a direct 12V to the solenoid, it does activate.

Dan

Terminal 86 and 85 should be for the coil inside the relay. If you have 12 volts on terminal 86 like in your first post then grounding terminal 85 should make the relay click. Does it do that ?. If so when it clicks terminal 30 connects to terminal 87 thus sending power out of 87 to your solenoid.

I really doubt your relay has to be grounded. Either the output wire on the Clifford is not outputting a ground for the relay to click or the relay is bad (even though it clicks does not mean terminal 30 will connect with terminal 87. Check into it more with a meter.

Jim

Jim, I really appreciate your time.  Speaking of  clicking, after reading your posts and checking the schematic, something clicked with me, and I'm almost positive I know what the problem is.  If there's enough daylight when I get home tonight, I'll double check, and let you know.

Thanks!

Dan

Got home last night, found my theory was correct about what was wrong, and bingo!  Got the solenoids to fire away.  Now, all I need to do is find a good switched ground on the Clifford to receive my remote signal.  Thanks again, Jim.

Dan