It has come time to fix one of the greatest aggravations with owning my Tracker.  The need to manually unlock my doors.  Ok, so I don't have too many complaints...

Total install time is 3-4 hours.

Step 1) Getting the Kit.  I purchased a universal remote lock kit from eBay for around $60.  It came with mounting equipment, 4 plunger type lock actuators, and a control box.  There are many different kits out there, just about any should work.  While one can use the normal screws for mounting the system, I replaced the metal screws with an actual Nut/Bolt style system.



The kit, as it should be delivered.


Step 2) Remove the door panel.  You only have to remove the door handle and pop the back half of the door covering and not the entire panel.  This saves on time and figuring out how to get the window roller off.  Just two screws and a couple of tugs and it pops right off.


Quick and easy.

Step 3) Next you peel back the rain protector.  If you’re careful you won't tear the plastic and it sticks back into position afterwards.


It's full of stars...

Step 4) Find a mounting position.  While it comes with a mounting rail, I found a nice little flat spot on the bottom of the door.  It looked like it would be in the perfect spot for the plunger to be mounted.


Looks like a good spot...


And look, it is!

Step 5) Drill some holes.  I just set the plunger in place and marked it from the outside, then drilled the two holes.


Look, holes! yea... exciting...

Step 6) Mounting.  You can use the default metal screws that come with the system, but I wanted something a little more solid.  A quick search around the garage found a just about perfect replacement.  Make sure you put the metal arm that attaches to the top of the plunger on before you mount it or you will have to take the plunger back out.  But you will only make that mistake once...


Replacements and stock.


And mounted securely.

Step 7) Attach the arm to the lock.  Using the supplied clip you just attack the two bars (the one from the plunger and your lock and you’re done.  Make sure that the lock and the plunger are in the same position.  I locked the door and pushed the plunger to the bottom just to be sure.


Shiny isn't it.

Step Congrats, the easy part is done.  Now you just have to do the wiring.



Wiring Installation

This was a bit of a pain, mainly because there are no speakers in the door and thus you can't just follow some existing wires.  The ideal method would be to pull your door off, drill some holes, put some grommets in place, and run your wiring.  If you want to do this in your driveway, you can use my method.

Step 1) Find a place to run the wires. About 3/4 of the way down the inside of the door is an opening that is covered by tape.  I decided to poke a hole in the tape and run my wires through there.  On the tub side of the equation, I ran the wires in through an opening up near the heater, then down inside the body.  I drilled a hole through the wall and used a small piece of wire to fish the cables out on the inside.


Wires go in the top, out the middle.

Step 2) Once I had the wires pulled out, I could easily fish them through the body to the outside.


Wire run though.


Wires pulled through.

Step 3) In order to avoid shorting out due to a lack of grommets, I taped up the wires with a few layers of electrical tape.  I may go back and put a set of grommets in as well, but that is where a little more planning comes in handy.


Tapeitude.

Step 4) After plugging in your plunger, put the side back on the door and screw on the handle.  And thus you have the finished product, one fully wired door for electric locks!


Better then new.

Finished, now just plug the doors into whatever alarm system or controller box you have and you are done.  Never again will you be forced to use the key to open your doors.

Problems encountered:

For the driver’s door, I tried doing something a little different using the existing grommet, and it didn't work so well, so I would do the drill and fish method again.  Also, the kit's wiring was a little short.  You might want to run your own wires and just patch into the controller box to keep things a little cleaner.  It would also allow you to mount the box up under the hood instead of under the dash.  Also, the kit I had did not have any mounting spots on the controller box.  So I have it tucked up on top of my steering column zip tied in place.  Locating a kit that has some tabs so you can make a bracket would be nice.

What’s next:

Taking a look at the tailgate to see what it will take to run wires and connect to it as well.

where was this tutorial a few months ago!
=P

good job with the post and pics man
got any shots of the switches/wiring on the main harness?

Someone was talking about this a few months ago and I decided it was a good idea. 

You can see in the top picture where it plugs into the box, there isn't much to it.  I can grab the wiring diagram if you want it, but it's pretty simple.  The main installation is in the placement of the plungers, from there you can wire into just about any alarm system.

It is nice to hit the button and watch the locks pop up.    Now that I have it though, it would be nice to have it only open the drivers side on the first click.  Maybe pick up another box... 

does anyone know how to install remote locks

on a tracker that already has power locks?


what would I need to hook up?

That's awesome and I love the step-by-step pics.  I wanna find a 5-door kit so I can wire up my 4 door kick with the tailgate as well  (generally I get most frustrated when carrying things to put in the back and having to set them down to use the keys.)

Excellent write up!  Thanks for taking the time & posting!!   

I have keyless entry on all my Zuks.  Also known as leaving the door unlocked!!!

Excellent write up!  Thanks for taking the time & posting!!   

I have keyless entry on all my Zuks.  Also known as leaving the door unlocked!!!

haha
same here

Weird, receiving all these comments almost 4 months after the post. 

If you already have electric locks it should just be a matter of tracing the wires.  All the control box does is hit the system with 12V one way for up, 12V the other way for down.  You could just trace it to your motor and splice your wires in there.  Any off the shelf alarm system or remote lock controller should be able to be adapted to work with your existing locks.

For the 5 door kits, just get a 4 door kit and splice one of the control wires.  My kit had one plunger with 5 wires, so it could tell if the lock was up or down, and so I could unlock one door and have it automatically unlock the other doors on the vehicle.  However, it worked just fine with only a two wire ends plugged in.  There was even enough power to run two plungers on a single line. 

With the higher end setups you might run into problems hacking things together, but that is the beauty of the basic setups.  They don't have enough electronics in them to figure out your not quite doing everything according to the directions. 

well... i figured you did a great job and needed more praise   

and thanks for the info
(i just hate doing wiring
i always have trouble finding the door trigger wires)

I would pull the cover off the door and find the motor, then just try hitting it with 12v from a battery charger on low amps and see what happens. 

Drone637, what a neat explanation for installing power locks. thanks man
You may help me with this; I also want to connect the actuators to a car alarm system (brand name is SHIELD) but I am not sure if I need relays because there are none shown on the pretty simple diagram that comes in the box.
Do you know if I need relys?
If I do, do you know how to hook them up?
How i know if possitive or negative set up do?
Please advise

  I personaly put relays on everything just to make everything more solid.I was looking into adding remote door lock/unlock for my 91 4 door,and finding this rocked!I allready havefactory locks,and a Clifford alarm,so I am hoping it will be easy.I definately want my remote start hooked up.and would love to be able to control my power windows as well.But here lately everything is going slowly.After over a month,I still have not managed to even install my lift!
  Good job,and I always like it when quality photos are included.

You could put relays on it, but most Alarm systems already have the relays built into the control box so you may be doubling up.  But it never hurts to have that extra layer of protection, at the very least I would put a fuse on the line to make sure you don't smoke anything.

Are you sure the actuators don't already have a relay system built in?  They also would need some sort of feedback device so the alarm system would know when the window was rolled up.  If you are supposed to plug both the positive and negative wires from your electric motor to the alarm system then it probably uses the strain on the motor to recognize that the window is rolled up.

Black is almost always the negative wire/ground.  On your instructions it will be when one wire goes to the ground symbol.

-----
 ---
  -

Any wire that goes to this you can usually tie into your body.

One way to test your wiring is to plug in your Alarm system then give it a command while checking the voltage on your end wire with a volt meter/multi meter.  This way you can find out what side gets 12V when the window is supposed to go up, and what side gets it when the window goes down.  On your windows you can do the same thing, then try splicing your wires together.

if you live in an area with snow or freezing temps.  Please give us an update.  My locks ALWAYS freeze in the winter.  I want to do this but it'd break my heart if i fryed one of those actuators because it was frozen and couldn't move.

Sorry, I don't live in an area that is quite cold enough to freeze my locks up.  However, I did play around with holding the locks shut and hitting the button.

Basically, nothing happens.  The system is basically an electro magnet setup, not a motor and gear.  If it can't push up because the locks are jammed it just kind of grunts and does nothing.  Since it is only a momentary 12v shot I wouldn't think it would fry anything.  If you are worried about it, just put a fuse on the line.