Central locking problems

[DWH]

Just got the central locking working.....yippee !!
There was a previous "mend" on the driver's side inside the door where the white/orange wire had broken and someone has used a "crimp" connector to repair it....never a good move in my view.
I've soldered a new bit of wire in and heat shrunk over both joins and then heat-shrunk over the whole lot before re-taping that part of the harness.
The problem with the white/orange and yellow/orange swapping over somewhere behind the dash is still there so I've done what was done previously and reversed the positions of the two wires in the drivers side connector and will leave a note there for the next person who has to sort a problem out.....may even be me !!
I'll grease all the lock linkages and window regulator parts before putting all the access panels back on.
Thanks for everyone's help.

[amarshall]

Glad to hear it's working again. Well done.

On to the next job - but remember - the natural state for any Lotus is for it have one annoying niggling fault. The knack is to repair them all until you get the one you can live with - then stop!

[amarshall]

Typical. As soon as we get yours working, mine fails!

Serves me right for moving some wires while I was adjusting the window motor yesterday (before tackling the stuck ignition barrel).

[amarshall]

Well that was odd, Fuse 33 had blown. All fixed now, though.

[amarshall]

Spoke too soon - intermittent fault found - and diagnosed. The female plug (on the door loom) wasn't a very tight fit, so the connections inside the plug were intermittent. All looked fine on the multimeter, but when everything was plugged in, no power was flowing. A bit of judicious "adjustment" of the metal outers (bending them in a bit so they were more oval than circular) created a better interference fit and NOW everything is working again.

[DWH]

Well done for finding so quickly. Intermittent faults are often the hardest to pin down as you can't always replicate the symptoms.

[amarshall]

Well done for finding so quickly. Intermittent faults are often the hardest to pin down as you can't always replicate the symptoms.

Yeah - it was a weird one. All voltages looked fine with the plugs disconnected and probes stuck right down inside the loom end plug, but nothing was getting through to the actuator - unless the plugs were wiggled!

[Lotus-e-Clan]

A potentially embarrassing moment .....

My central locking/ Cobra alarm multi-connectors are a bit flakey and as a consequence the battery drain is high. So yesterday I disconnected the battery in the car park at uni ...just in case.

I locked the doors (and boot) manually.

On return to the car I opened the door manually and put the keys in the ignition. Then I remembered the battery was disconnected. The boot was locked so I took the keys from the ignition to open the boot and I shut the door.

I reconnected the battery and the central locking automatically LOCKED the doors!

Soooo glad I took the keys from the ignition to unlock the boot 'cos I wonder how I could have opened the doors once the central locking had locked the doors with the keys in the ignition and the spare keys at home!

I'm assuming the doors would stay locked even if I disconnected the battery again? - I must try this out at home sometime to find out for sure!

I wonder if anyone has locked themselves out this way?

I'm going to replace the old school spade type multi-connector ASAP with a modern fully waterproof connector to sort out the Cobra alarm system's misbehavior - I'm sick to death with the flakey connector and high battery drain.

[amarshall]

I'm assuming the doors would stay locked even if I disconnected the battery again? - I must try this out at home sometime to find out for sure!

They do - it's a latching system. Anything else would be a bit insecure since the doors would open as soon as the battery went flat.

[Lotus-e-Clan]

I'm assuming the doors would stay locked even if I disconnected the battery again? - I must try this out at home sometime to find out for sure!

They do - it's a latching system. Anything else would be a bit insecure since the doors would open as soon as the battery went flat.

I see.

Then it was a close call for me because I often forget to lock the boot as it's not on the central locking system. If the boot had been open I would have definitely left the keys in the ignition on this occasion.

The Cobra mufti-connector has been flakey for some time because it's location in the engine bay is subject to water ingress.

The issues I've had over the years due to this pesky connector include:

• Random glowing Alarm LED - even when off
  Indicators not working (random)
  High battery drain

Time for a fix me thinks!