Kaps

If someone can email or reply on this it would be great, I will try and prove I own the car some how...

I have a Viper I think its the 500+, alarm and remote start, it was the older ones that came with the first ugly square key pads. Its all messed up, goes off while Im driving, been giving me problems getting in and starting the car, when the key pad did work and it started my car if I opened the door it would turn the motor off, and finally today it wont let me in or start the car! It wouldnt shut up so I cut out the g*ddamm horn. Any insights as what to fix this with? If not how do I take the damn thing out so I can drive the thing??
Like do i just unhook the alarm box? I would think if thats it, thats what any thief would do. Like what color wires need to be respliced or what ever? The people that installed it did a HORRIBLE JOB!! Looks like someone threw up spegetti wires underneath my dash board and its all wrapped in electrical tape, not crimped. HELP ME?!?

Kaps

Almost forgot, the previos owner ripped off the switch at the bottom of the dash when he was replacing a fuse and never put it back on cause he couldnt figure out what wire it was due to the hack install, figure i would let you know before you thought i was retarted and all I needed to do was hit the button with my keys in it.

joezero

It could be a couple of things. I had mine going off because I jacked up the remote and so the button was stuck down and it kept arming the alarm. (The remotes don't like water either. ) That would be easy enough to test, just disarm it and take the battery out of the remote. If it stopped then you could just replace the remote.

Are you disarming the alarm after the remote start but before you get into the car. A lot of times the remote start temporarily bypasses the alarm to start, and then reactivates it. So when you open the door it may kill the ignition to keep somebody from getting in and stealing it. As far as I know the 500+ didn't come with remote start, it's an add on module.

Your best bet would be to go to www.viper.com and get the installation manual for the alarm. Make sure you have the 500+, it will be in a little square on the alarm module. Then get the wiring diagram for your car (out of chiltons or haynes manual). Go through each wire and verify that it's connected to the proper wire in the car. If when you remove the electrical tape you find that it's soldered, you may just want to leave it. If it's not, just use some of those plastic wire taps. The only place that the factory wires should be cut and connected directly to the alarm is for the ignition. Those wires will run to a black relay probably near the module.

If you want to completely remove the alarm you will need to splice the ignition wire back together. Other than that you can just remove any places where the wires have been tapped and put some electrical tape over it.

The valet button should be a pair of grey wires that plug into the module through a 2 prong female connector. It will be on the opposite side of the main wiring harness on the module.

Good luck in getting that to work.

joezero

Here's link for the 500+ install manual:
http://www.viper.com/guides/manuals/ig/viper/N437V.pdf

Kaps

Thanks for the info, but now im not sure as to what I have.

I know its a viper, probally atleast 4yrs old, with remote start, 4 button square pad, with keyless entry, no power trunk release. Can someone in plain english tell me what to connect and disconnect? In case its needed, its a 88 GTA with the damn digital dash, (which is also messing up) Is there a simple answer?

joezero

If you can get the main module out, there will be a small square on one side. Inside there square it'll say something like 500+. Although if you have a four button remote it may be newer than the 500.

The simple answer is that a previous owner probably engaged in the practice of smoking large amounts of crack before working on the car. My brother's 89 camaro was the same way when we got it.
What about the dash is messing up? About the only thing I can think of that would be connected to the alarm is the parking lights.

Kaps

Im not sure if its the same problem, but a few weeks ago I honked the horn, well it didnt honk, but my spedometer dropped to "0", and then changed itself to kilometers, then back to zero, then didnt work for a while, then came back, after that the alarm has been messing up. Also if I honk the horn, the same dash spedometer crap happens and the alarm would REALLY act up for a day or 2 then it goes away if I dont honk the horn anymore, but now the alarm wont let ME in my own car or start it!

I know this post might belong in electronics, so if it does please move it, just seems like joezero might be able to help me (thanks for the help so far

THANKS!

1983SS

ok first off you stated that when you open the door the car shuts down? Thats not right. That tells me that the shut down wire (the foot brake wire) was hooked up to the door trigger for some reason. As far as the speedo goes unless they really hacked up the install or burned through some stuff shouldnt be related. The viper alarms have a lifetime warrenty on them if properly installed. I would get intouch with viper directly if you dont know who installed it. Best thing to do is to take the bottom dash of the car a part, you will need a 7mm socket or nut-driver to do this and probably a #2 phillips. I dont think judging by you description that they got creative in mounting it, so its probably laying ontop of that panel. Get the model nuber off the top of the brain so you can tell viper and myself, for certain which one you have.

joezero

I have to agree with 1983SS about the dash not necessarily being related to the alarm. However, this sounds almost identical to what was going on with my brother's car when we first bought it. It turned out to be the following: The had somehow managed to remove the 12V constant wire from the radio wiring. So instead they tapped into the power for the emergency flashers and ran a wire over to the radio. Second, a previous owner had done a bit of a hack install, and an even worse unistall. Third, a wire was coming loose from the fuse block.

The only thing that seems to connect all of these problems is that the wires are all in the same location. Now it's possible that whoever wired the alarm was color blind and hooked it up to all the wrong wires, but that seems unlikely. What's more likely to be going on is that some of the wires are shorting out around the steering column. This could be a result of a bad install, or it could just be that over time the wires have rubbed somewhere and the insulation has come off. Do you have a tilt steering wheel?

I would begin by removing the alarm. If you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself then you can have a shop do it. If not, you first need to find the main alarm module. Unplug the main harness and set it somewhere safe. Now trace each wire back to where it connects to another wire and remove it. Wrap some electrical tape around the factory wire where the tap was. You'll come to a red wire that will run through the firewall. Depending on how it was wired there may be a black one as well. If you want to reinstall the alarm after all this is done, then cut the wire(s) about 3 inches from the main harness. Once all the wires have been disconnected remove the main harness. The only remaining wires will be for the valet switch and any sensor your alarm is equipped with.

Now drop the steering column. As 1983ss said, I think it is a couple of 7mm bolts. Be careful because the column is heavy, and you don't want it to hit you in the head. Now inspect all the wires running down the steering column for any signs of damage or fraying. Also, since it sounds like the horn is what's cause the problems to start, make sure it's properly grounded. A bad ground has been known to make gauges do weird things.

If after the alarm has been removed it still looks like the olive garden's all you can eat buffet under there, then you have a big problem. Hopefully though the wiring mess is limited just to the alarm. If not get back to us and we'll see what we can do. Good luck!

Kaps

ok, I ripped off the bottom panel, it wasnt mounted to anything, just plopped up there with nothing hoding it. Its the the viper 550HF. Can someone tell me what wires need to be disconnected and reconnected? I dont feel too comfortable doing this blindly by a diagram, if someone has had the experiance.

While I had it down, the key pad seemed to be working fine, then I tried to honk the horn, and I could kinda hear it wheeze a honk. Then right after I tried the remote, and nothing again. So i think either the alarm is messing up my dash or vise versa. At the moment, I have no radio in the car whats so ever, I know the power source is hacked off the cigar lighter, ( and while I had a radio in the car the radio worked, but the lighter didnt, but thats a diffrent problem.)

Any insight of what to do would be a great help, as I plan on working on the car tommorro since I have the day off.
THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP SO FAR

The car looks like crap right now, but I am trying to fix it up when money allows, so I would like to fix the alarm if possible, so I dont waste $400 bucks on another one when it could go to something better. I know the shop that installed it, but since I am not the original person to pay for it they wont help me, and I have no paper work for the alarm anyway. I have had problems with this place when I had my power doorlocks and windows intalled in my camaro and dont plan on using them ever again and try to warn people about them, looks like they f*cked me again...

Kaps

btw, I do have tilt, but I know it hasnt been moved around for 5yrs, Ive kinda knew the previous 2 owners of the car.

joezero

Your best bet since it looks like the install was done wrong, would be to remove the entire harness and start from scratch. Go to this link http://www.viper.com/guides/manuals/ig/viper/N550hf.pdf
and print out pages 9 and 10. You will need them once you get out to the car. You can probably leave the wiring and relay for the remote start in place, so long as that has been working properly. Those will be seperate 5 and 6 pin harnesses. What you're after is the main one. That's the big 12 pin connector. There is no fast solution, you just need to take your time disconnecting the harness. Once that's out, if you don't want to keep the alarm, remove the starter kill relay. If not, try and start the car. If it starts up with the relay still installed (it should so long as it's not recieving a signal) then just leave it. I would drive it around for a few days without the alarm and see if you can cause any of the problems you're having now. If not, reinstall the alarm per the directions. If you can get a wiring diagram for your car it will make the re-install much easier. It's really not that hard, it just seems intimidating at first. The most important thing is to do everything right first time. Don't try to take any short cuts, don't do anything half-assed and say "I'll do it right tomorrow, but I don't know if it'll work so I'll leave it like this". When I first started doing my own electronics installs I did stuff like that. I ended up with no headlights and no interior lights because I hadn't properly grounded the stereo. And then I just kept driving the car around wondering what was wrong. I was like "this car is jacked up, it's such a piece of crap". In reality it was that I had done a lousy install trying to save a few bucks and blamed the car instead of learning how to do it right.

Kaps

Thanks man, looks like Ill try doing that, but its HAILING AND SNOWING of course, I HATE nj...