Door Chime Mod

[TryToFocus]

I ran a search and didn't find any practical methods for silencing the chimes, so I took matters into my own hands.

-Chris



SO YOU WANT TO STOP THE DOOR CHIME…

I know I’m a bit long-winded, and you can probably perform this mod faster than you can read this post, but humor me. I spent a lot of time on this one, and the mod itself is ridiculously simple, so putting up with my rambling is a small price to pay for what I’ve suffered through. (I think I hear a violin playing in the distance…)

Let’s see, what are our options?

Jamming the switch will work, but that's awfully crude. Also, if you forget to remove whatever you’ve jammed in there, the door might get stuck closed.

Cutting the switch’s wire, or unclipping the wire at the switch, will work just fine for silencing the chimes, BUT the dome light won’t be activated when the door is opened.

A second switch can be installed in series with the door switch, allowing the driver to override the stock switch. Remembering to flip the switch on and off would get to be just as annoying as the stupid chimes, and installing the switch is too much trouble anyway.

You can disable the chime itself, but this is also rather crude. Besides, you’ll want the chime to work if somebody borrows your car and loses oil pressure, for instance (not likely, but you never know).


The “it can’t be that simple” solution is to connect the driver door switch to the passenger switch’s wiring. Then, when you open the driver door, the central timer module will “think” that the passenger door is open.

The mod itself is extremely simple. Figuring it out took a while, especially since the circuit uses a switched grounded conductor (I’m used to residential wiring, where a grounded conductor is almost never switched). The switched ground means that you can’t just open the door and see what wire is now getting power. Instead, you have to see which wire, when grounded, will trigger the dome light and the chime. From my Haynes wiring diagrams, I knew it was a black and yellow wire, but there are several to choose from. I could’ve tried grounding them one by one, but I didn’t want to risk a short circuit and the fuse-hunting that might accompany it. I opted to pull individual wires from the wiring harness in the driver’s footwell to find the right one. Be forewarned: this is a huge pain in the neck, and it’s easy to break the little plastic tabs if you’re not careful. I used a precision screwdriver and a lot of patience.

Once I located the wire (I disconnected the side that heads toward the instrument cluster), I found the corresponding wire from the other side of the harness. This is where things get really easy the second time around. There are two yellow/black wires that share a terminal on the back of the harness. Two slots away from this terminal is where the two blue/black wires come together for the passenger side switch (on sedan models, there may be four wires here – the Haynes wiring diagram was inaccurate, as it did not show the passenger door wires passing through the harness at all).

EDIT: On models without power locks, there may not be TWO combined yellow/black wires on the back of the harness. Without power locks, only one wire would be necessary, so it's all a matter of whether Ford omitted the wire entirely or simply left it unused.

Anyway…

To make this mod, all you have to do is bridge the blue/black and yellow/black terminals after disconnecting the yellow/black wire from the central timer module. I made my splice on the back of the harness, but it’s easiest on the instrument cluster side. This way, you won’t have to pull any pins from the harness, and you’ll only need one splice connector. Just cut the yellow/black wire, leaving at least a few inches to work with. Tape off the instrument cluster end, since grounding this wire will make the electronics “think” that the driver door is open. Now put the other end of the yellow/black wire into one side of the splice connector, and slide the blue/black wire into the other side, crimp it, and you’re done.

If, for whatever reason, you want to be able to return to stock, you can install a SPDT switch. This will let you choose whether the driver door switch triggers the driver door circuit or the passenger door circuit or nothing at all (with an on-off-on SPDT switch).


Total cost is less than a buck. I just saw splice connectors at Home Depot – a four-pack was 65 cents as I recall. You’ll want the smallest size (red), or you can use telephone taps. I don’t recommend cutting, stripping, and splicing the bare wires because there’s not much slack to work with.

DISCLAIMER: I made this mod to my 2001 ZX3, so obviously the wire colors and locations could be different for your model. This is unlikely, since Ford would obviously want to keep costs low by using common parts, but it is possible. The basic method I’ve described is perfectly safe, however, once you identify the wires. If you do the work methodically, it really should be easy.


SUMMARY:

1.) Remove the cover plate in the driver’s footwell (it’s just inside the door). Locate the yellow/black wire on the harness – it’s the one with TWO yellow/black wires entering the harness on the other side.
2.) With the door switch depressed (or unplugged), wait for the dome light to turn off.
3.) Use a short piece of wire to ground the yellow/black terminal very briefly. Don’t leave it grounded for long - if it’s the right wire, the dome light will turn on for a few seconds, and if it’s the wrong wire you might blow a fuse or worse.
4.) If you’re sure it’s the right wire, cut it a few inches from where it enters the harness. Seal the “dash” end of the wire. Now you can release the door switch and the light will not turn on.
5.) Find the blue/black wire on the harness. Again, it will line up with TWO blue/black wires on the other side (on two-door models). With the passenger door closed, use a piece of wire to ground the blue/black wire briefly. This should activate the dome light; otherwise, it’s not the correct wire.
6.) Splice together the blue/black wire and the short section of yellow/black wire coming out of the harness.

Other stuff to consider:

If you separate the harness halves, it’s best to disconnect the battery first. The harness is held together with a 10mm hex head bolt, and once the bolt is removed and the harness is unplugged, it’s much easier to pull the harness loose from the chassis to find the doubled-up wires on the other side.

On my model, the yellow/black and blue/black wires are on the right side of the harness, and they enter the 7th and 9th terminals, counting from the top (viewed with the harness clipped to the chassis). If your wires are in these locations, I wouldn’t bother to check the back of the harness – just use the grounding test to make sure they’re the door switch wires.

The central timer module will shut off the dome light after a certain period. If you can’t get the light to come on when you ground one of the switch wires, try putting the key in the ignition and turning it to the run position and then back off in order to reset the timer.

After this mod, the car’s central timer module will never know when the driver door is open. This means that the lights-on reminder chime will not sound. Aside from that, I haven’t seen any negatives. Based on the wiring diagrams, it appears that the security system will not be affected by this mod, since the driver door switch will retain its connection to the anti-theft/central locking module. My car has every available option for its model year except automatic transmission, traction control, and the moonroof, and everything is still working just fine. Keep in mind that the chimes will still sound for the seatbelt reminder, of course. But bypassing the seatbelt switch is another project (gotta’ look out for the side airbag wires)…

[Sponsor]

[fokuzsport]

awesome.. how long did it take you to type all that? lol

[microtonal]

I would say make this a sticky but I don't think there's enough glue to keep this post from falling off the forum.

Good write up...a litle loooooooooooooooooong winded but it's got the goods.
Nice job.

[TryToFocus]

Thanks guys. Hehe. Yeah, I know I tend to give too much detail. I just didn't want people saying, "why didn't you just do this...", so I tried to show my entire thought process.

Even with all the tinkering I did, typing this up probably took longer than the mod itself! And now that I've done it, I could do it again in less than 5 minutes (not counting the cover plate removal and replacement). But for me, the fun is in DOING the mod, not so much in HAVING the mod (although that might not be true in this case - I LOVE this mod!!!). For those of you who would rather just HAVE the mod, I figured my "little" write-up could save a lot of time.

We'll see...

[stangsteve]

i hope im not wrong but there is a way to disable it , i know mustangs have this , you need to do some sequence and it will stay off , least i have seen it in a mach 1 so far . i belive he did find this in the owners manual , if you want me to look i can look in a manual to see if it saids anything?

[djnevoc]

Great write up, I remember on long mods like installing a dvd screen or XBox I would jam the switch with a socket then forget about it and close the door.... bad choice there... everyso often on bigger bumps on the interstate the car thinks the door is open and starts to chime..... God help us all!!!

[TryToFocus]

Hehe. Yeah, not good. That's why it's important to tape off the cut wire with my mod, or else the same thing will happen if the wire touches part of the frame.

[scrammer]

this thread as been added to the How-To Archive

[HaveBlue83]

I NEED to do this........thanks...

[Jeyuno]

I am very new to this whole thing. Would anyone happen to have pics, a step by step "How to.." of this mod?