Electrical & Audio Guides
Fitting A Remote Boot Latch Solenoid
You will need:
- Boot solenoid (see below)
- Brown, Red wire (6 amp current rating)
- 30 amp "automotive" relay
I have been asked about this one many times and many people I know have made the same mistake (including me). Make sure you get the right thing from the scrap yard! There is one of two things you will find in the boot of an Escort or Orion, one is right the other is wrong. The solenoid is a small metal framed unit that looks like a transformer with a sliding metal rod through the middle. The unit is constructed of a large coil of wire which is covered by cloth tape, and it has only 2 wires - Red and Brown (Some may have 2 brown wires which are connected together). The other thing is a central locking motor and is of no use on a Fiesta me and many others all found this out by getting the wrong thing first! This is because the locking motor is more common than the solenoid. The locking motor is easy to avoid though, it is big and plastic! When you remove the solenoid make sure you get the connecting bar as well.
Some XR2's had a solenoid fitted as standard and if you look in the Haynes manual the wiring diagram has it included, so it is fairly easy to wire in. The only difference between this way and the standard way is that with the standard fitting the solenoid is wired into the ignition and alternator circuits so that it will only operate when the ignition is on and the engine is NOT running. This is easy to get round simply by grounding the relay directly instead of through the alternator. If you can find an XR2 at the scrap yard with a boot solenoid then all you need from this guide is the wiring guide as the unit complete with latch and solenoid will bolt straight into the boot in the place of the existing latch.
The switch for the solenoid is found on the dash board of the car you get the solenoid out of. It's got a picture of the boot lid open on it and should press down and release (ie. not stay down like the other switches). Connect the grey wire to the dash board illumination circuit, and the brown wire to any ground point. Now connect each side of the switch inline with the relay, one side of the switch goes to the "ignition on" position and the other side goes to terminal 86 on the relay. Now connect terminal 87 on the relay too a long length of wire that is capable of taking 6 amps and run it along the car and into the boot lid. This is easy to do on the Mk2 as there are cable holes in each side or the boot lid. The drivers side one will have a rubber tube in it which holds the wires for the rear wiper and heated screen. The passenger side should be blocked off with rubber bungs, these just pull out and you can put a rubber tube from the drivers side of another car in their place. Run the wires through this and into to the boot lid. You need to have enough wire to reach almost 2 thirds of the way across the boot. Then finish off the relay connections as shown below:
Relay wiring at a glance:
- Terminal 87 - to solenoid
- Terminal 86 - to the switch
- Terminal 85 - to a grounding point
- Terminal 30 - to +12 volts (cigarette lighter)
If you don't get an XR2 solenoid then, as with mine, the solenoid needs to be secured into the boot next to the latch. So that the connecting bar will reach the hole in the latch that the return spring goes through. You can check you have the right hole by closing the latch and then pulling the tag with the spring, the latch should release. Don't bother trying to drill a hole in the latch for the connecting bar as the latch is way too hard to drill though. The solenoid needs to be positioned so that the bar is at its furthest out point when the boot latch is closed, this can be done by connecting the solenoid to the latch and then pushing it closed, you will need to keep the boot open so that you can see inside the boot lid and mark where the solenoid is sitting after the latch has been closed. Do the best you can to make marks in the same place on the outside and then drill two 3mm holes where the screw holes in the solenoid frame line up on the boot lid.
Finally, connect all wires and secure the solenoid inside the boot, before replacing all the trim it is best to check that the unit works. Sometimes the connecting bar needs to be twisted slightly to allow enough freedom in the connection for it to move (when I first fitted mine it was jammed solid!). Keep taking the unit out and twisting the bar bit by bit until it works. To stop the connecting bar from coming off at the latch end, either use a push-on fixing on the end, or if you are delocking the boot use the clip that holds the lock connecting bar on at the lock end - it will need bending slightly.
Circuit Diagram:
