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Sun Dec 25, 2005 3:23 pm

OK all, this should be easy for someone out there.

I ripped the (non-functional) alarm out of my van that the PO put in. Everything came out clean except for one wire.

At the pillar between the passengers door and the slider, behind the vinyl trim, there is an access hole. The PO had pulled a brown wire out from inside the pillar, cut it and ran a new wire to the front fuse pannel.

Only one end of the wire was comming out of the pillar. I removed the splice, and taped the end of the wire off.

Now, the interior lights do not come on when the slider door opens. I'm gussing that the brown wire should connect inside the pillar and continue the fuse panel, but I don't know where to look for the other end (the one the PO cut off). I'm guessing that the PO lost the cut end inside the pillar and decided to just run the other wire to the front under the carpet.

I would like to re-connect it like it was stock.

So.... here's the question....

Does anyone know the location and routing of the factory ground wire that connects the slider switch to the front of the bus??

I know that was kinda long, but thanks for the help!!

Oh, BTW Merry Christmas to everyone in VW land!!!!!!

Sun Dec 25, 2005 7:30 pm

ok we know by now that vw grounds are broun in color.. so my guess is that it ran to the front dome light . it mostlikly runs thru the front cross over beam right behind drivers seat .

Mon Dec 26, 2005 10:52 am

Sounds logical. I didn't see the wire on a quick inspection, but as soon as the liquid sunshine lets up I'll crawl under and poke around some more.

Thanks

Mon Dec 26, 2005 11:18 am

a good guess is it is the door switch wire, an alarm system would want to tie into that so they could trigger the alarm if the door was opend.

Jim

Wed Dec 28, 2005 9:13 pm

The Westy Vanagons did not originally have a pin switch for the sliding door.

I guess VW assumed that at a campsite, with the slider open, the owners would run the batteries down with the interior light burning. You don't really notice that light on during the daytime.

I snaked a wire down that column between the slider and front passenger doors, to add an interior-light pin switch to the slider for an alarm in my Westy. Then I ran the wire over the front passenger door and down the A pillar, and just spliced it in to the existing pin switch wiring for the front passenger door. No need to go all the way across to the fuse box - just catch it behind the glove box.

Sure enough, I've forgotten a few times to switch off the interior light when I had the slider open for a long time, and ran the battery down. But the alarm will be set off if the sliding door is opened manually, which was the object of the exercise.

Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:29 pm

Forgive me if I jack the thread a little but, on my '89 GL there is a pin switch that looks just like the one in the slider door jamb in the jamb of the liftgate. There are wires on the back but it does nothing and never did. I checked the wiring diagrm and found that, according to Bentley, there is no switch there. Anybody have a liftgate that actually switches the dome on and off?

Thu Dec 29, 2005 5:14 pm

MR Vanagon - I would love to have the lights come on with the gate. I suppose there is no reason it couldn't be wired that way. Worth looking into.

Witless - I wonder if the switch was addad just for the alarm. You are right, no need to go all the way to the panel. I'll just tap into the front door. You just saved me some serious time! Thanks.

Fri Dec 30, 2005 2:43 pm

I am pretty sure that no Westies got a tailgate pin switch from the factory, for much the same reasons as they got no slider pin switch.

As I understand it, only the passenger vans got the slider door pin switch, but I'm not sure if any passenger vans were wired for a tailgate switch from the factory.

I have my tailgate wired with a pin switch, too. If you're going to alarm 3 of the doors, you have to go for all four.

I just snaked the wire from the tailgate forward, inside the air duct tube over the slider. Once it reaches the vertical column ahead of the slider, that wire is spliced to the same wire as the slider door pin switch gets spliced to. So both the tailgate & slider pin switches tie into the original factory wire that runs behind the glove box (the one that works the passenger front door pin switch).

The main issue for the tailgate trigger is mounting the pin switch somewhere that the door will hold it compressed securely when latched, and release it completely when opened.

The mount for the sliding door switch was easy, because there was already a factory cut-out in the column. So just use a factory pin switch there, and you're golden.

But there's no factory cut-out in the rear (that I could find) for the switch, so you are on your own. If you look at the "mating surface" (or lack thereof) between the tailgate and the body of the van, you'll see this is more challenging than first appears.

You only have about 1/4" distance to guess with on the mount location (ie. pin travel distance in the switch), so if you don't leave enough space for pin travel when the gate is closed, then closing the tailgate will destroy the pin switch. But if you guess too far in the other direction, and leave the pin with too much room with the gate closed, then you get the dome light erratically turning on to burn down your battery overnight (and also randomly trigger your car alarm, if equipped, which makes the neighbors happy).

Sat Dec 31, 2005 12:09 pm

Although this switch is not like the ones used on the front and side door, it does control the dome lights on my '85 parts bus. It looks as if its painted gold like the bus, but its actually silver. Its controlled by a "VW brown" wire. I dont know if its OE, dealer add one, or PO installed.

Mon Jan 02, 2006 6:34 am

Oops, theres more. I was taking parts off and happened to look up at the rear hatch. This tang depresses the switch.

Mon Jan 02, 2006 2:29 pm

If you want to be able to keep a switch there, but don't want it coming on all the time... Get the door switch from a rabbit/jetta... I know the one in my 91 jetta had a little notch on the bottom of the post, and you could push it and down with your finger, and it would lock in the off position... They look a little different than the stock ones, but install just the same.... :twisted:

Tue Jan 03, 2006 12:49 am

Hey bus63 thanks for the pick. That's exactly like my '89 GL. As my dad is the original owner I can be sure that that switch on mine is stock. Wondering why my switch does nothing and why it isn't on the wiring diagrm. Looks like VW already did the hard part. Now just have to figure out why it's just been for show for 17 years. Looks like another project just developed.