2002 f350 door trigger wires pulsing?

Hello all, I was refered to this site from another site. I am having a issue and am having a hard time understanding what is wrong. I own a 2002 F350 Lariat 7.3 diesel. I recently purchased some AMP steps for it. I installed the steps and everything works as advertised until I start the truck up. Once I start the truck and open either my driver door or my rear passenger door the steps start acting crazy. Well I called AMP and they tell me that those two door trigger wires are being pulsed. They will send me some diodes to install on their wires. They tell me to look for a aftermarket alarm. I crawl under the dash and pull out a DEI 561 remote start brain. I traced all the wires and I dont think any of them are plugged into either of those door trigger wires. I did a quick search on here and someone was saying that remote starts have to pulse the door trigger wires to prevent RAP. What is RAP? And why would wires that are normally grounded be pulsing? Thanks for any help Mike

The 561R is only a remote starter, and doesn't have any alarm features.

RAP is Retained Accessory Power.....you know on some cars where you park, shut the car off, and the radio and power windows stay working for a short time, or until you open the door to get out?

Well, on cars like that, some installers connect a wire to the driver's door pinswitch so that when the remote starter times out and shuts off, the car's radio also shuts off right away instead of staying on for a little while.

Your Ford doesn't even have RAP, so there's no need for the person who installed the remote starter to connect anything to the door pinswitch wires.

Anyway......

I'm pretty sure that yes, your truck does do weird things on the door pinswitch wires. I know that when we install alarms on those trucks, we generally don't use the individual pinswitch wires.....we just use the wire that goes to the overhead dome light.

I'm pretty sure the domelight wire is BLACK/ light blue, positive trigger, in either kick panel. I would just have wired the step lights right to that and be done..........only thing is (and it's either a benefit or a drawback depending on your opinion), is that the step lights will also come on even when you switch on the overhead light to find things inside the car....not just when you open the door.

But yeah, if your installation is already done, you could just go back in their and add the diodes they're going to send you, instead of changing everything around.

Just cut the Ford's original wire in half. The side of the diode with the white stripe goes to the "door" side of the wire you cut, and the side without the stripe goes to the "car" side of the wire you cut. The step wire also goes to the "door" side of the connection.

That way, only the door's status will affect the step light, and whatever the vehicle is doing pulsing the wires, won't have any effect on the light.