Bought a budget Bulldog KE-1702 Keyless Entry system and a dummy LED. Total cash spent $30 + shipping. My switch dissections I did before saved me a lot of time and were definitely the hardest part. Here's the install:

First (after the obligatory disconnect the negative battery lead), remove the front passenger door panel. Pop off the trim piece in the upper front corner (right behind the side view mirror). It just pops off. Remove the black trim fasteners from around the edges by unscrewing the plastic torx screws, then pop out the female parts still in the door. be ready to catch the female parts when you pop them out as they like to fly. Unpop the little cover behind the door handle, and remove the big phillips screw. Then, pop out the handle surround, from the dashboard side (it slides in to the rear, so pop out the front and slide it out.



Remove the window/lock switch (just pops out), and unplug the wiring harness from it. Then slide the panel upwards, and remove.

The lock switch is negative trigger (ground). you'll need to run two wires into the door, one for 'lock' and one for 'unlock'. They both get tapped into the same wire, but have a resistor at the splice with each. The keyless unit's negative 'lock' output gets a 330 ohm resistor. The negative 'unlock' wire gets a 100 ohm resistor. You could probably use the same splice for both, I chose to use a splice for each.

It is easier to make the taps at the end that plugs into the wiring hub. It is the top right corner, plug number 5. The wire you need to tap is purple with a green stripe. Pic before soldering and tape:



Tape the wires into the rest of the bundle. Remove the door's wiring boot from both the dashboard and the door. The dashboard side pops out with a little wiggling (push down right where the boot is stamped 'up', there are light retainers right under it). The door side is held with two torx screws (you'll need a ratchet to get them out). One side of the dashboard end has a plug, the other side is open. pull the wire through the open side. On the door side, remove the tape, and there is a plastic hold down piece that can be removed by popping the clips. If you don't remove it, you'll never get the wires through. Boot (and door side retainer) removed:



Remove the lower glove box (ST's only have one glove box anyways) by opening, and squeezing the sides together. Then fish the door wires through to the area behind the glovebox. Reassemble the door boot, and put the door panel back together (make sure to note which is your lock and which is your unlock wire). Re-insert the mirror trim piece. Plug the harness back into the window/lock switch, and pop it back into the door trim.

The next step I did was to wire a dummy flashing led as a passive deterrent, to save future work if I upgrade to an actual alarm, and to make it easy to confirm my doors are locked when looking out the living room window at night. After looking for the best place to drill, fish wire, and be visible, I chose the passenger speaker grill. If I screwed it up, the speaker grill could be easily replaced, it was easy to remove and drill, the mounting depth was perfect, and also easy to fish the wire down through the speaker hole. Pic of the LED:



The next step (didn't get pics of this one) was to wire the parking light flash. Remove the headlight switch. You can either pop the headlight switch itself out, or pull off the whole piece with the vent too. Removing both the switch and the vent gives you a bit more room for making the wiretap. The wire you need to tap here is pure white. The pins are in an 'L' shape, the white wire is right on the corner. This is another signal wire like the locks, so no external relay is necessary. you'll just need a resistor between this wire and your kit's negative parking light trigger. You'll need a 1.146 kiloohm resistor. (I didn't have this value, so I had to series a couple together). Make the tap with the resistor, and fish the wire through the dash over to the passenger side. Put the switch/vent back together, and secure the new wire.

Now, make all the appropriate connections to the entry unit's wiring harness. Kit's -lock and -unlock go to your door wires, the wire from the headlight switch goes to the kit's -parking light trigger. I used a new groundpoint on a steel bracket under the dash for the two ground wires the kit required. For the kit's constant +12v and the LED's +12v, I tapped the 'always on' cig lighter on the passenger side, as it was especially handy right there and current draw is almost non-existent. I tied the LED's ground to the -starter kill output of the kit. Having a sentry key system, I saw no need for a starter disable, and the kill's grounded output when locked was perfect for working the LED.

After all the connections are made, reconnect the truck's battery, and make sure everything works. In my case, my homework was correct, and everything worked perfectly. Now it's just a matter of tying off wires, and securing the lock box. I strapped the lock box to the steel bracket right behind the always on cig lighter plug. It fit there nicely, is nice and solid, and does not interfere with the glove box. Secured the wires to the big bundle up above, being certain to keep the yellow antenna wire separate and straight. Lock box and wiring secured:





Make sure everything still works, then re-install the glove box and crack open a beer.


Ram4thGen