Remote Trunk Lid Release Design and Construction

[2002isGuy]

Hi Cal,

Great engineering. Mine's ready for testing, but just one snag. I bought my actuator used on eBay, forgot about the connector, and didn't think the connector would be difficult to find. Wrong...

I'd rather not go to another junk yard like yesterday when I found nothing, but 100+ degree temps here now. Does your 2-pin plug connector for the actuator have a part# on it?

Barry

[dsiegel]

For what it's worth, I decided to drill 2 small holes through the side of the plastic surrounding the 2 pins (+ and - power connectors) and threaded wires through the holes up to the insulation, wrapped the bare wires around the pins and soldered them in place.

It actually allows you to extend the bracket holding the actuator a bit less to the right (passenger side direction) because you don't have the additional length of the proper female plug since the wires going through the holes can point down and not out (if that makes sense). It's not that much of a difference, but the shorter the bracket the less it intrudes along the edge of the trunk opening, and there is no plastic female plug that might get inadvertantly broken when putting something in or out of the trunk. The wires are entirely covered/protected by the bracket holding the actuator.

I will also add that when I got mine all completed and installed, the horizontal bar fitting attached to the trunk lid (that mates with the trunk latch) would not clear the thickness of the bracket. I cut away the portion of the fitting that extends a couple of mm downward beyond the bar, but that did not solve the problem. So, I had to remove the bracket and cut out a notch right in front of the forward opening of the latch. This did the trick. The rear edge of the bar fitting cleared the bracket without any modification.

The whole project took quite a number of hours, but I've been using it for some days now, and it's great. I had already put power lock actuators in the doors years ago, with an Omega REC43T wireless receiver. The receiver has a lead for the trunk, which I threaded to the back of the car so now have wireless unlocking of the trunk (as well as a hard wired switch that I located in the vertical piece of sheetmetal that holds up the leading edge of the bottom of the back seat). It is a nice, if completely unnecessary, upgrade.

Thanks to Cal for the overall design.

David

[2002isGuy]

Thanks for your input David, sounds good to me. I did think after seeing Cal's pics that the plug was sticking out further than I'd like.

I'm going to use your approach. Solved!

Barry

[kbken62]

My only suggestion would be to create a kit and sell it!

Maybe just the hand made pieces and let the installer find the OEM pieces.

Great writeup.

[calw]

Guys, thanks for the additional input. I would like to be sure it works, not certain yet that car-to-car tolerances and such wouldn't cause problems. So Barry and David, as they say in some online forums:

No pictures? it didn't happen... Please show us your versions here.

I did check the connector, and there doesn't seem to be a P/N that's readable. With enough luck, the correct part can probably be found from BMW, but don't forget to also get the pins, which will probably be a separate P/N. The problem is to, as usual, guess which of those tiny pictures in the page of assorted electrical parts is what you need. This is one case where going tot he parts counter will probably be wise.

Soldering straight to the pins? Why not. Just follow the usual precautions so as not to melt any plastic. You can also probably find suitable pins to match the actuator's connector in a real auto parts store.

The bracket can of course be made longer to shield the connector with a weight penalty of an ounce or 2.

None of this is Mars Curiosity technology...

[calw]

See the kit now available for this unit in the parts for sale section

http://www.bmw2002faq.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,50/page,viewtopic/t,376046/