Club 80-90 Forums

we have factory fitted central locking on our van(89 westy) that has never worked, i removed both door solenoids today and found that both of the small drive motors inside look as though they have been brought up with the mary rose, completely seized solid, what options do i have... apparently t4 motors will fit with some modification, so ive been told, but im reluctant to spend anymore than neccesary as its had the bank of England thrown at it... are there any of the ebay cheapie universal kits that actually do the job? or is there another option... i am yet to check the tail gate motor but would imagine this is fooked also... anyone?

This might give you some help..
https://club8090.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33611
I'm pretty sure some members have fitted universal kits, the tricky one is the sliding door, but you will already have the contacts fitted.
T

thanks mate , i read that before having a dig, ive found universal kits on ebay for under 20 quid delivered so im gonna have a go at that , i may only need the door solenoids from the kit as the wiring etc is already on my van and will be adapatble, not sure whether the pasengers door solenoid fires the slider though, need a wiring diagram...

Your motors will be fixable with little work, some contact cleaner,a bit of grease, and some small springs. Whilst the cab door motors will be in a state the rear ones probubly aren't, though the sliddy bar thing might need cleaning and at 19 years age they could all benafit with some TLC to become perfect again. It should only cost you the beer you drink while fixing it.

If you need anymore help ask on the other thread above (keeps it all together), I've got a cab motor that needs rebuilting so could take pictures if needed to back up whats already in the other thread.

[quote="Syncro G"]Your motors will be fixable with little work, some contact cleaner,a bit of grease, and some small springs. Whilst the cab door motors will be in a state the rear ones probubly aren't, though the sliddy bar thing might need cleaning and at 19 years age they could all benafit with some TLC to become perfect again. It should only cost you the beer you drink while fixing it. ive had em to bits today mate, the motors are solid rust , when i opened them up water ran out , trust me the motors are fooked, (the little scalectrix ones inside)...

In that case you've got 3 options if you want C/L.

1) Find some more T3 motors - not too common but breakers sometimes have them and VW probubly still sell them at a price. You'll need to buy the hole actuator.

2) Get some others off a scrap 80's/90's VW - much easyer to find as they are on higher spec mk3 golfs and mk4 polos. The ones your looking for make the slow winding motor noise not the fast clunk C/L usally makes on other cars, you'll know what I mean if you here a VW one working (not easy to test in the breakers). Even if the caseings are different on a golf motor I suspect the motor and gears inside will be the same so can be canabolised. Not sure how sersepterble to corrosion they are but anything under a roll down window seems to have a hard life, but are usally salvageable - guess it depends if the drain pipe remains unblocked and the rubber gator on the top stays intact.

3) rip out all the motors and fit one of those cheep £20 kits instead like you get from maplin or somewhere. They should fit on the original brackets without too much modifying, all the tricky bits for retrofitting you already have. All the wireing loom thats hard to access (under the headlineing, basicly everything for the rear doors) won't need modifying, you just don't need all 3 wires. The cab loom will need an extra wire adding and a bit of ajustment for the control box.

The original VW setup uses 4 wires to active motors (cab doors) and 3 wires to responding motors (rear doors). The front motors always have power fed to them and tell the other motors what to do by feading the power down one of the 2 control wires - all motors always have some current in them but turn themselfs off when they've done a cycle.
On other systems all motors have 2 wires that actully move the locks, direction depends which one is powered/earthed breafly (hence unlike the VW ones they don't have seperate earth wires) - A control box controls this. The active motors have an extra 3 wires that are for position switches that tell the control box what to do. Its quite a bit different from the proper VW setup!

Another thing to watch for, cab actuators extend to unlock, rear ones contract to unlock. Your loom probubly swaps them round itself though so match the colours and it should work fine - if you wonder why they don't all go the same way, thats why - its not broken!

whats the extra wire adding you mention?..

Why are these central lock kits slow and not likethe positive click newer ones? R upgrades possible? Mind you the centarl locking match the electric windows...

Syncro G wrote:


2) Get some others off a scrap 80's/90's VW - much easyer to find as they are on higher spec mk3 golfs and mk4 polos. The ones your looking for make the slow winding motor noise not the fast clunk C/L usally makes on other cars, you'll know what I mean if you here a VW one working (not easy to test in the breakers).

MK3 golf's and MK4 Polo's use vacum/pressure lock actuators.

PEET wrote:Why are these central lock kits slow and not likethe positive click newer ones? R upgrades possible? Mind you the centarl locking match the electric windows...

You really want to know? Okay then...

The VW ones are slow because of the way they are inside, no you can't really speed them up (though fitting super fast motors might be a pointless help). Internally they have a worm drive off the motor that turns a big wheel through half a turn useing low gearing - A pin on the wheel pushes the arm in and out but its aloud to move freely once the rest point has been reached at the end of the 1/2 revolution. This is needed as the worm drive gearbox can't be driven backwards from its output so the piston can't turn the motor - if it didn't disconect the motor you wouldn't be able to manually move the pistor and therefore couldn't unlock the door manually! The big wheel also controls when the motor should run by contacts underneath it. A sliding contact on the side of the piston (on all motors but only actully doing something on cab door motors) controls wether the motors should run in or out so no external controls are needed, you just wire all motors together. The motors always run in the same direction aswell so no seperate control is needed there eather. Because of this the wires needed are...

1) a wire to make the actuator extend (always +ve)
2) a wire to make it contract (always +ve)
Each of the above wires lets the motor run for 180° of the big wheel, one wire alows the motor to run in the the 0-180° region, the other the 180°-360° region, asuming the wire controling that segment is live (that depends on the position of the pistons on the cab doors, as all cab door pistons move together only 1 half of the wheel will be live at once so the motors stop when the dead side of the wheel is reached)
3) an earth (that never changes as the motor always turns the same way)
4) wire is to power the front motors and make them switch the motors on. (and control the other motors)

As the gearing is low its very strong and could damage the motor/geartrain if the actuator jammed, to cure this there is a spring in the piston leaver which alows the big wheel to turn even if the piston can't move, the spring compresses and takes up the movement. You'll hear a bang noise if this happens but its probubly not the fault of the actuator, more the door lock itself and damages nothing. The only way I can see these actuators comming to harm under their own power is if the big wheel jammed half way through its cycle and it left the motor on whilst stalled, it'd burn it out. That would probubly only happen if there was bad corrosion inside the actuator though so it'd be knackered anyway. In reality if the corosion was that bad the actuator would break by poor contacts first and just seaze up afterwards through lack of use makeing repair harder.

Still with me? The "other" type...

Never had a look inside the other style actuator but looking at the shape of it and feal of it I'd say theres a motor perpendicular to the piston driving it by a less extremely geared (faster) rack and pinion, perminantly ingaged. The geartrain can be moved manually and the motor spinns one way to go in and the other way to go out. If for some resion the actuator is jammed the motor will stall, as its only powered for about a second it won't care too much. You need the extra wire on these motors because the wires do these functions...
1) Perminant live feed for switch
2) switch output - tells controler to spin motor one way
3) switch output - tells controler to go other way
4) Motor winding +ve*
5) Motor winding -ve*
* field direction varies acording to which direction motor needs to move.
actuators that control other doors need all 5 wires, responding motors only need wires 4 and 5.
(For changing genuine VW actuators to these you'd need to loose the seperate earth wires and add the 2 switching wires, in practise that'd mean converting the earth into a swithing wire and adding 1 extra wire.)

When the control box revies a signal from one of the switch wires it powers the motors in the required direction - you'll hear a loud click as the motors quickly shunt the piston to its limits and another click soon after as the motors shut down again when the controlers pulse finishes. The control box needed is probubly some relays and a timer.

As for upgrading and which is best? Don't think there is a best, they are both different ways of doing the same job with simular results. The VW ones seem to break once every 15-20 years but I bet the cheep crap ones from China will have their faults in that timespan and aren't serviceable unlike the proper VW ones. Personly I like the steady wering noise of the VW ones and like OEM stuff (they would please me more knowing its "right", and ofcourse working perfectly!(I cry if things aren't working right, unless it has a querky charm that you can lern with the right techneque)), though a part of me wishes I didn't care so much, I think its a form of OCD! One of the many things that make me a weardo. Still, in some way or another, there you go - hopefully not too badly explained but with unreadable spelling .

andysimpson wrote:

Syncro G wrote:


2) Get some others off a scrap 80's/90's VW - much easyer to find as they are on higher spec mk3 golfs and mk4 polos. The ones your looking for make the slow winding motor noise not the fast clunk C/L usally makes on other cars, you'll know what I mean if you here a VW one working (not easy to test in the breakers).

MK3 golf's and MK4 Polo's use vacum/pressure lock actuators.

Oh, so yet another weard system from VW then, who'd have thought that! I'm not going to try and think how they work. Does anything use things simular to the T3 then? The examples above on my mates cars certainly sounded simular to the T3 ones.

Syncro G wrote:

andysimpson wrote:

Syncro G wrote:


2) Get some others off a scrap 80's/90's VW - much easyer to find as they are on higher spec mk3 golfs and mk4 polos. The ones your looking for make the slow winding motor noise not the fast clunk C/L usally makes on other cars, you'll know what I mean if you here a VW one working (not easy to test in the breakers).

MK3 golf's and MK4 Polo's use vacum/pressure lock actuators.

Oh, so yet another weard system from VW then, who'd have thought that! I'm not going to try and think how they work. Does anything use things simular to the T3 then? The examples above on my mates cars certainly sounded simular to the T3 ones.

They both have a pump in the boot, pipe connects to every actutaor, pump is triggered by movement of either front door lock. It would work well if the pumps were better situated, they are very sensitive to water and cost £170.

andysimpson wrote:

Syncro G wrote:

andysimpson wrote:
MK3 golf's and MK4 Polo's use vacum/pressure lock actuators.

Oh, so yet another weard system from VW then, who'd have thought that! I'm not going to try and think how they work. Does anything use things simular to the T3 then? The examples above on my mates cars certainly sounded simular to the T3 ones.

They both have a pump in the boot, pipe connects to every actutaor, pump is triggered by movement of either front door lock. It would work well if the pumps were better situated, they are very sensitive to water and cost £170.

Sounds a bit like Syncro difflocks then? Wonder if the actuators could be bodged to do that job when the proper difflock actuators become [more] obsolete and imposable to source in working form?

Syncro G wrote:

andysimpson wrote:

Syncro G wrote:
Oh, so yet another weard system from VW then, who'd have thought that! I'm not going to try and think how they work. Does anything use things simular to the T3 then? The examples above on my mates cars certainly sounded simular to the T3 ones.

They both have a pump in the boot, pipe connects to every actutaor, pump is triggered by movement of either front door lock. It would work well if the pumps were better situated, they are very sensitive to water and cost £170.

Sounds a bit like Syncro difflocks then? Wonder if the actuators could be bodged to do that job when the proper difflock actuators become [more] obsolete and imposable to source in working form?

no they are never going to fit, audi quattro ones could be adapted i think.

Hehe guess I'll be leaving mine well alone while it works then! I just prefer the operation of the newer cars central locking, I thought they were more solenoid based?