2003 ford explorer fad

Looking for info on a 2003 Ford Explorer with Keyless Entry and a Factory Alarm.  This is my sisters car and I will be installing a Viper 5301 into it after Thanksgiving.  I have done about 10 installs into my kids cars, my car, brothers,  ect ...(Viper 5301, 5701, 571) ... but this will be the first one with a factory alarm.

The remote start wiring part of the install I have no questions about, what I am wondering about is the factory alarm part. 

I have the info on TechTip 1094 and 1093 that address the GEM Wake Up.  

Anything I should be looking for as far as the Factory Alarm causing me problems?   I am installing only a remote start on this.  My sister lives about 250 miles away from me and I want to avoid problems.

Thanks in advance.

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Disarm on explorers shoudl be a green with a purple stripe. it'll be in the door harness going into the car. i usually will get it in the kickpanel. it will test as a negative trigger while turning the key in the door to unlcok.
what unit will you be installing?

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MECP Advanced Installer Certified.

Ok, Good info to have.

I will be installing a Viper 5301 with a Frotin Key Override Sl2 for the bypass.  No question on the remote start wiring, hood pin, brake, tach, ect..

I have read that there are several GREEN/ purple wires in that area, so turning the key to unlock is one I had not heard about.   Also from what I have read, I have to use a relay to wake up the GEM with a double pulse unlock wire from the brain or is TechTip 1093 more in line with what I and doing?

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Smokeman, have you verified that it does infact have a factory alarm?  I just did an 05 Exploder and it did not have a factory alarm and I did not have to do gem wakeup. 

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OH Yeah.... This for sure has a Factory Alarm... I like how you refered to it as an Exploder. Could be a large Pinto.

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Well, you sound sure it has a factory alarm, but the GEM wakeup still may or may not be necessary. Your sister should be able to easily check this for you.

Just tell her to do the following and then report back to you about two things.

1. Roll down driver's window.

2. Close the door (make sure all other doors, hatch, and hood are closed too).

3. Lock doors with factory remote, and leave the car alone for a little while. I think two minutes is enough, but to be safe she could just go back in the house and have lunch or something.

4. Come back to the car, reach in through the open window, press the power Unlock button on the inside of the door, and try to open the door.

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Then, these are the two questions for her:

1. Did the doors unlock when she pushed the button, or did they stay locked? If they unlocked just fine, you don't need to do anything special. If on the other hand the unlock button was dead, you'll need to do GEM wakeup.

2. When she opened the door, did any alarm sound?

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If you need to wake up the GEM:

I can't remember the layout of that document, but the idea is pretty simple.

The GEM wakes up by opening a door, and then after that, the unlock button becomes active again.

So, all you have to do is simulate opening the driver's door before hitting the Unlock button, and you're all set.

What color is the domelight supervision output on that Viper.....I want to say it's the thick BLACK/ white? Anyway, that wire makes a ground for 30 seconds every time you hit Unlock on the Viper remote.

So, you find the driver's doorlatch wire in the car. If memory servers, it's BLACK / YELLOW or yellow/black, coming in from the latch inside the driver's door, but I'm pretty sure you can find it along the driver's doorsill right where you'll get the lock wires.

Then, you connect to the doorlocks in the car as normal (pink / YELLOW and pink/green), but you MUST program the Viper for double-pulse unlock.

What happens is this: The first unlock pulse from the Viper is actually ignored by the car, because the GEM is still asleep.

After that, the Viper's BLACK/ white puts a ground to the car's doorlatch wire, fooling it into thinking someone opened the door.

By now, the GEM is awake, and the second unlock pulse from the Viper will open the doors.

P.S. The doorlatch and doorlock wires in this car are low-current, you shouldn't need any relay. Just hook them up direct.

P.P.S. Don't forget a relay to connect the rear hatch release, if you plan on hooking it up. The tech sheet lists some B.S. location buried in the cargo area, but you don't need to go there.

The wire is purple / YELLOW and it comes out from under the driver's seat, goes to the doorsill, and then goes to the rear of the car.

You can catch it where it comes out from under the seat, but it's very tight. If you don't like that, you might want to just extend your wire and pop off the driver's-rear doorsill and grab it there.

Chris,

Thank you for such an extensive write up. With all of that info, I think I could do this install blindfolded! ... LOL..

To answer the two questions you asked:  I had my sister to perform the window down, close all doors, lock the car with the FOB and wait test.  We did this twice, once after 5 minutes and once again after 10 minutes. Same results, Doors does unlock from the switch inside the car, and horn sounds and lights flash when the door is opened.  (I heard the horn over the phone)   So, I don't have to worry about wakeing up the GEM.  And thank you for the info on the rear hatch release from under the drivers seat.   I'll grab it at the doorsill as you suggest.  I think I have all the info I need and no more questions at the moment, so I'll post the results.

Thank you very much

Rich

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Just an update.  Was delayed from doing this install in November and didn't get there until this past weekend. It went without any major glich thanks to the help of this site and the kind pros who pointed me in the right directions.  Kind of a tight area to work with on the ignition harness, but do-able. 

Did have an issue with the tach signal. Viper would learn it but not "keep it".  On subsequent remote starts it would start, run for a minuet and the shut off. The explorer did seem to have a rather low idle, so i switched it to voltage and no problem.  I know I have read some where here lately on this site on ford, maybe f150, having a tach learn issue, so I do some researching. I also used a DEI 1100F. Very easy gadget to install and program.

Zerepdivad, you were on the money for the Factory Disarm Wire and its testing. There are three wires the same color in that wire bundle, only the correct one tested out as negative when turning the key. 

Dasbogie, Thank you very much for the photos of the wiring harness. Greatly appreciated on finding that FAD.

Chris, I don't know why, but there was no need to wake up the GEM even though this vehicle has a keyless entry and a factory alarm. This Explorer must have been built on a Monday or Friday.  ha ha

Only wire I could not find in the time I had to work on this Explorer was the rear defrost.  In the past, on my daughters Focus and my Taurus I was able to get at the switch on the dash to activate the rear defrost from there. I tried to locate a wire in the drivers door sill and the drivers rear door sill that was active when defrost was on, but to no avail. 

Long story short, my sister is thrilled with it.  So my thanks to you all.

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If you ever get a chance to try for the rear defroster again, Directechs shows grey/lt. blue at the switch. I've found this on a few Explorers before so it should be there. But if I remember correctly its just a pulse when the button is pressed, not a continuos ground.

Thanks Blanx218,

I shall keep that in mind as I plan to get back to it sometime during the summer.  I just didn't have the time to take the center console apart.

Rich

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