93 ford ranger remote start install

[cheinemann]

Thanks for the pointers - I'll have a look at those next; I was questioning if maybe the connection for the hood switch does not have a good path to ground. I do have the brown brake switch wire hooked up, and it does behave / meter out as you described above. I'll try disconnecting some things, and see if I can maybe get some joy that way. Thanks for the advise.

 

[cheinemann]

Hey everyone - I wanted to take a moment to give a quick update. I was able to get the unit working. I kinda followed Robbie's advice - I started checking the afore mentioned wires with a meter and found a couple of things. I found that the park brake ground connection was faulty / intermittent. I spent the better part of an hour, and had to run an additional jumper to get the park brake switch a better ground. I also found that the connection for the tach signal was flaky. While the t-tap connector pierced the insulation for the coil wire, it did not pierce the insulation for the wire back to the remote start. After connecting these 2 items, the remote start functions as intended. One observation that I did make, is that during remote start that the radio does not get power, which is not a big deal. I checked through my haynes manual to try and determine if it was due to a faulty connection, but could not determine how / where the radio gets its power. Lastly, I've found that the park brake switch / ground is still intermittent at times. Has anyone else seen this and have a suggested fix? Let me know. Thanks for the advice, everyone!

 

[RobbieD]

Good job!

T-taps, or scotch-loks commonly make crappy connections. Especially on something like a tach sense circuit (it's a low volt AC signal).

You'll need to power the accessory circuit in the truck to get the radio to work during remote start. You'll need another hi-amperage output from the remote starter, or use an added relay.

Try cleaning the parking brake switch with aerosol spray contact cleaner; after 30 years it's probably a little dirty.

 

[James Morse]

PATS shouldn't come into it at all. My '97, no PATS, '99, has PATS. I think '98 was the changeover year, new gen began then.
Glad it's working now.
On my '97 it cuts power to radio when in 'START' position so that's normal. They're trying to route all power to the starter. It doesn't need a 'fix'; it'd be a 'mod'.
Most likely that happens in the ignition switch itself, as to which contacts are closed in the 'RUN' position vs 'START'. Edit, I see you have advice on that now if you want to mod it.

 

[cheinemann]

thanks for the info - yeah, as long as the radio not getting power is normal I dont care much. The purpose of the remote start is to warm up the engine in cold weather. As for the park brake thing - yeah, I did pull the switch out and clean it thoroughly. But, its looking more like I need to reterminate the wire that goes to the switch. It seems that the connector itself is intermittent. In regard to using t-tap connectors - I went this way as I really did not want to cut into stock wiring, so I thought this would be a "safer" bet.