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Installed Power Door Locks to my JL Sport

RubenZ

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Now I'm by no means a Technical Report writer so use this more as a guide. I can reply here to any questions you may have.


Power Lock Install for JL Wrangler Sport

Introduction

Power Door Lock Install on Jeep Wrangler JL Sport is a project I didn’t anticipate doing until I used my jeep for a few weeks without power locks. It got annoying really quick, and I wish Jeep wouldn’t be so cheap and make this a standard option across the trim levels. One thing I will say about this project is take your time!! These vehicles are filled with plastic pieces that will break if you rush it and just try to pop everything off in a hurry.


Parts Needed
  • OEM Door Latch from a JL Wrangler with Power Locks. You only need the 4 doors as the Swing Gate already has power latch. You can purchase these pretty much from any Mopar parts website. I got the below Part numbers from All Mopar Parts:
    • 68250661AC
    • 68282954AA
    • 68282961AA
    • 68282960AA
  • Keyless Entry Alarm & Door Lock Relay Module. The Door Relay Lock Module is needed for the Actuators to function. As for the Alarm you can pretty much go with any aftermarket alarm that offers keyless entry. I chose the:
    • Avital 3100LX 3-channel Keyless Entry Car Alarm
    • Directed Electronics 451M Door Lock Relay Module
  • Door Actuator Wiring Jumper – Since you will be installing an Actuator with Power Lock abilities you need to use the wiring jumper for Power Locks. The SPORT wiring jumper only contains 2 wires which just tell the jeep if the door is ajar. The Wiring jumper for a power lock jeep contains 4 wires for the 3 non-driver doors. The driver door uses an 8-pin wiring jumper. I will explain what I did with this further down.
    • Wiring Jumper Part Number: 68351170AA
  • Electrical Crimp Connectors
  • Some Automotive Wire – You can use 18-20gauge wire. I would get 2 different colors so you can have 1 color for the unlock wire and 1 for lock. I ended up having to get 50ft rolls for each color. Then a 25 ft roll for the wire needed to go from Battery to Alarm Module.

Tools Needed
  • Torx Bits (Sizes T15, T20, T30)
  • 10mm Socket
  • Needle Nose Pliers
  • Wire Stripper – Irwin Self Adjusting Wire Stripper. I can’t recommend this one enough!!
  • Wire Cutters
  • Auto Trim Removal Tool Kit – This is optional if unless you want to break some plastic off your new jeep. I tried one door without them but it was scary and I broke a plastic clip in doing so.
  • Various Screw Drivers


Step One – Door Trim Panel Removal
  • Door Trim Panel Removal PDF Document will explain how to Remove the Door Panel. This is where yo will use the Torx 30 for the bigger bolts and the smaller Torx 15 for the bottom screws: Door Trim Panel Removal
**NOTE**Pay close attention to where the Plastic CLIPS are in the Diagram. This is where you will need to use the DOOR TRIM Removal tool to snap them out.

Jeep Wrangler JL Installed Power Door Locks to my JL Sport Screen-Shot-2018-10-08-at-8.38.03-AM-300x257



Step Two – Inner Door Plate Removal

Jeep Wrangler JL Installed Power Door Locks to my JL Sport IMG_5842-300x225

  • After you have removed the Door Trim Panel, you can remove the inner Door Plate. For the PDF document on removing the inner door plate Click -> Inner Door Plate Removal
    • You will need a 10mm socket to loosen the bolts that retain the Inner Door Plate & Window. Once you have lifted the window up, you can hold it up with DUCT TAPE. I used some of the Door Trim Removal Plastic Tools and wedged them in between the glass and Rubber on the door.
    • *NOTE* For the Front Doors I honestly didn’t need to remove the handle as suggested. For the Rear Doors you will.


Step Three – Door Latch Removal and Install
  • Once you remove the Inner Door Plate you will have access to the Latch. Be very careful remove the latch from the Plastic Parts it is connected to. They will break.
  • For Detailed PDF on switching out the door latch CLICK HERE -> Front_Door-Latch_Removal
Jeep Wrangler JL Installed Power Door Locks to my JL Sport Screen-Shot-2018-10-08-at-8.48.56-AM-300x258

*NOTE* You will see TABS that hold the Latch (#4). On the other side, you can insert a small screwdriver to release the clips.



Step Four – Repeat Steps 1-3 for all other doors
  • The Steps are pretty much similar for the other 3 doors. The only difference is the Rear Doors you will have to remove the Handle. To remove the handle, you will need to move the rubber door seal and access a small hole there with a Torx T20 Screwdriver. This is not my youtube video, but it gives you an idea of how to do it.
  • Once you have completed all the doors, do not replace them yet. You need to do the wiring.


Step Five – Wiring the Jumpers
I’ll try not to make this so lengthy as its pretty straight forward and I will include the actual JEEP Wiring diagrams at the end of this post so you can use as reference. Basically, the new Wiring Jumpers you will get have 4 wires. Now surprisingly the colors will be different as they are wiring jumpers for a Wrangler with Power locks from, he factory so they are different. But all you need to know is the ORDER they go in the connector. So, for example the Jumper you get will look like this:

Jeep Wrangler JL Installed Power Door Locks to my JL Sport Screen-Shot-2018-10-08-at-9.06.46-AM-300x220

You only need to concern yourself with the order of the PINS and not the colors as the colors will not really match up to your wires you bought. The first Green one is PIN 1 and the last Violet/Purple is Pin 4. So, Pin 1 is UNLOCK and Pin 2 is LOCK and the other 2 need to stay in same order with what your about to do next.

Now basically when you buy the Wiring Jumpers, you're only using them for parts. You won’t actually connect them in their complete form to your lock actuators. For example, the 3 doors that are NOT the driver have different plugs from the factory, so you are going to remove the wires from the jumper you bought and place that connector onto your jeeps. To do this:

Jeep Wrangler JL Installed Power Door Locks to my JL Sport Screen-Shot-2018-10-08-at-9.14.54-AM-300x226

  1. Undo all the tape that holds the wires together on the new Wiring Jumper you received.
  2. Next you will need to remove the connector from the wiring pins. To do this, you will need to slowly put a screwdriver where I have the RED ARROW and lift that plastic. It will reveal the Wiring PINS.
  3. Using your nail or small screwdriver you will push down on the pins and pull the Black and Violet/Orange out. Leave the Green ones in there.
  4. Cut the wires close to the OPPOSITE SIDE connector.
  5. So basically, you should be left with the above Connector with the 2 green wires (about 6″ in length) and 2 empty slots from the wires you remove.
  6. Now you can go to your jeeps Latch Wiring harness and plug the new wiring Jumper to your existing harness the same way. It should be pretty straight forward. Basically, the reason you're doing it this way is to not have to under the wiring loom front the factory harness.
  7. Now you can wire in your new WIRE you bought to the LOCK and UNLOCK wires on the new jumper. Remember Pin 1 is Unlock and Pin 2 is Lock. So, for example, I used a Green Wire for Unlock and White for Lock. That way I keep it consistent for all doors and when I plug it into the Alarm Relays it's easier to remember.
  8. Now just zip tie or use electrical tape to run the wire along the factory wiring harness and through the door wiring loom on the jeep.

Jeep Wrangler JL Installed Power Door Locks to my JL Sport Screen-Shot-2018-10-08-at-9.28.00-AM-300x262


Make sure you leave enough slack for all doors to reach under the steering wheel where you will mount the alarm module.

Repeat the Above steeps for all other doors. For the Driver door you don’t need to replace the switch. you can just remove the extra pins that you will have left over from the other jumpers and add them to the connector. For some reason the driver side connector doesn’t need to be replaced like the other doors. So just get 2 extra wiring pins you will have left and they will go on pins 5 & 6

Jeep Wrangler JL Installed Power Door Locks to my JL Sport Screen-Shot-2018-10-08-at-9.31.45-AM-300x148

After you’ve done the above steps and left enough wiring slack you can pretty much put the doors back together same way you took them apart. Go slow and take your time. Connecting the rods back to the latch is tricky for the front doors if you opt NOT to remove the handle piece.



Step Six – Wiring the Alarm System/Keyless Entry


Jeep Wrangler JL Installed Power Door Locks to my JL Sport Screen-Shot-2018-10-08-at-9.38.39-AM-268x300

This is entirely up to you, but I opted to really just use this alarm for the Door Locks. I probably will wire more of the security features at a later date like Door Trigger alarm, aux swing gate unlocks, etc. That is why you see that big bundle of wires tied up. So, for now let's just focus not he necessities.

Basically, you just need the Red Battery Wire, Black Ground wire and then the small little wiring harness on the bottom that plugs to the 451M Door Lock Relay Module. So, what I did was run a wire directly to the battery for the RED(Batt) Wire. The Black wire is your typical Ground wire. As for the wires on the Relay here is what you need to do:

Jeep Wrangler JL Installed Power Door Locks to my JL Sport IMG_0866



Step Seven – Clean up wires.
The Rest is pretty self-explanatory. Just tuck the wires away neatly behind the plastic trim pieces. The Rear Doors I ran along the bottom plastic trim piece onto floor. For the Passenger Side I ran the rear door wires to the passenger side wires, then spliced wires from there across the center console hump to the alarm module under the steering wheel.


Conclusion
All in all, this took me about 8-10hrs to complete. I know it's a lot of information to take in, but once you start removing the door panels etc. and look at the wiring jumpers you will start to make sense of what I did and wrote. Also, the other thing that may be annoying is having to have 2 key fobs. However, the one from Avital is pretty tiny compared to the jeep one so I hardly know it's there and since the Jeep is Push button to start, I never have to really get my keys out. I just reach in my pocket and hit the unlock.
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Jeepsterfreak

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This is an awesome write up.

1. How many of the 68351170AA jumpers do you need to purchase? Do you need 3?

2. Can you program the alarm to only unlock/lock the driver’s door first or does it unlock all 4 doors at the same time?

So you were able to add power locks for about $200?
 
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RubenZ

RubenZ

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This is an awesome write up.

1. How many of the 68351170AA jumpers do you need to purchase? Do you need 3?

2. Can you program the alarm to only unlock/lock the driver’s door first or does it unlock all 4 doors at the same time?

So you were able to add power locks for about $200?
Ya, I bought 3, but should have bought 4 because the passenger and rear plugs are sealed and don’t let you add the wire jumper to the plugs already there. It’s hard to explain, but if you need assistance I can give you my number. It’s easier to see what needs to be done when you have it taken apart.

I’m pretty sure you can program alarm to work how you want as it has an aux button. You could wire the driver door to main unlock switch and the other three to the aux. a different alarm may allow you a push twice to unlock the passenger and rears.

Like I said, I’m not a good writer so if you need explanation or can do a quick video or you can text me
 

winkopp

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Thanks RubenZ, I just finished installing on my 2 Door with your help. I will just add some of my recommendations.
The install was harder than I was expecting.

These were the part numbers I used:
68250661AC Front door Left Latch
68282954AA Door Latch (fit the right Pax Door)
68351170AA Wiring-Jumper

I wired the alarm first. I taped the alarm and door trigger relay together and then stuck it behind the glove box behind the airbag. The wiring and alarm were a tight fit. Getting the hot wire to the battery was easy going from the glove box to a grommet on the driver side then back to the battery.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO TAKE OFF THE OUTER DOOR HANDLE for the front doors as RubenZ suggests.

Recommend doing Passenger door first to understand the wiring connector differences.

Disconnect the door electrics at the connector inside the foot panel and unhook the wire harness from the support hook. to disconnect, push the red lock up and then lift the white bar up.

Taking the door outer panel off was not difficult. 2nd door will take about 10 minutes.
I used a small screwdriver to get the clip off of the window handle (it will fly a long way when it comes off, be ready to search for it unless you have a trick to catch it).
Remove the two handle screws, the two screws at the bottom of the panel and the hidden screw behind the plastic cover at the inner door latch.
I used the panel removing tools you can purchase from Harbor Freight. After popping the panel fasteners push the panel up at the window to get it off.
There is a large jumper connection and a two wire jumper between the outer and inner panels. I disconnected the two wire jumper (much easier).
Then disconnect the latch cables (The black cable pops up and off. The white one squeeze and pull out).
Remove the panel and put it far away.

Inner panel a little harder. 15 minutes for the second door.
There are two bolts that are behind the large-white plastic plugs. Do not worry, you can remove them and slide the window up and away. It goes back together easily. You will need to put the window handle on temporarily to move the window down so that the bolts are visible and you can remove them. Once the two bolts are off, you can wiggle the window a little and pull it up. I used duct tape to secure the window in the up position.
Remove the eight bolts, notice where the empty bolt hole is where the inner door latch bolt came from.
Pop the electrical plug into the door.
The panel comes off easily, there are some cylindrical groves that come out straight. There are also some parts that go under the upper and lower metal door. So, pull it out slightly and then lift up to free the lower side, then you can move the panel down to free the upper side.
The panel is not completely free.
Pop the 2 cable connectors into the door, notice the different sizes. The cables cross inside the door for some reason.
Reach in and disconnect the electrical connection at the latch.

Remove the old latch.
Disconnect the two rods the the latch. I disconnect the rods at the old latch and not the door. It was easy, move the plastic locking device then remove the rods.
Remove the white window guide. At the top, pop the two latches (upper and Lower). Then remove the two screws. They are T-20 torque screws. For one door, I used a torque bit and pliers to get the screws out. After loosing the bit, I bought a small wrench from Harbor Freight for $3 with the bits and it went much faster for the second door.
Remove the three screws hold the latch in place on the outside of the door on the side of the door.
The latch should come out easily.

Take the black piece of the latch.
I put a little pressure on the far end of the black piece while pushing the little tabs with a small screw driver, and it came apart easily. Look at how the black piece attaches to the white latch before taking apart. There is a little piece that kinda interlocks and can be confusing when you put it back together, making you think the parts are incompatible. They are compatible.

I hope I have helped you take your jeep apart. It goes back much easier. Only caution, when you put the wiring harness onto the new latch make sure you get it into the wire guides on the window guide to prevent rubbing. Test the new latch before putting everything together.

The wire connector you buy has 4 wires. The old Passenger door connector has four pins, but only 2 openings. You need to remove the two wires pin 1 and pin 2, from the old Passenger door connector and put them into the new wiring connector with 3 and 4 for the new Lock and unlock.

The front driver door connector has two empty plugs that you use to add the lock and unlock wires to. There are openings for the wires, thus you do not need a new connector, but you can use extra wire pins from the passenger door connectors that you will have left over. The lock and unlock go in the 7 and 8 I believe, but it is where the yellow plugs are. Just be aware the driver connector is different from the other doors. That is also how you can tell the difference between the latches, the driver latch connection has more than 4 pins.

Good Luck.

Pic 1 Large connector Does not need to be disconnected.

Pic 2 Window bolts, one removed.

Pic 3 Suggested tool to remove screws on white window guide.

20190120_085645.jpg


20190120_085907.jpg


20190120_114132.jpg
 
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RubenZ

RubenZ

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Thanks for the other pointers. Also I may have worded it wrong, but you have a 2door so you don’t need to remove the outside door handles. But for the 4 door you have to do them for rear doors since they are smaller at the bottom.

Glad you got them installed. By the way, can you empaphize what wires you tied in to the alarm. Right now I’m using alarm strictly for door locking operation, but I never tied it into the horn or alarm to sound when doors open.
 

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911JL

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Were you able to wire this to your Gate lock as well?
 

marygorham

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Any chance you’re looking to make some extra money and want to do this for me?!?! I’ll buy all the parts and pay you to do it on mine !
 
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winkopp

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Were you able to wire this to your Gate lock as well?
Yes, I have wired the swing gate, but I am still waiting for the latch to arrive. Wiring the swing gate was much easier than I expected. I went from under the dash on the passenger side. There are plenty of trim pieces to put the wire under. At the swing gate hinge, you can easily poke into the wire harness. Taking off the swing gate cover is not difficult. I used my old antenna as a tool to help push the wiring through some difficult parts.
 

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Is the Keyless Entry Alarm a hard requirement? Meaning, is it involved in the unlocking mechanism as well?
 

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kirbyx

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Is it possible to install power locks as you describe onto a base 2 door JL with manual windows?
 
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RubenZ

RubenZ

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Is the Keyless Entry Alarm a hard requirement? Meaning, is it involved in the unlocking mechanism as well?
Yes, if you don't then you have way more to do as far as making it work like from the factory. Probably need a new harness, Flashing the computer, and who knows what else.

Buying a Keyless Entry Alarm bypasses all that re-programming etc and keeps the whole system separate. Believe me, I wish it was easy to do like factory but I didn't even bother researching it once I saw you had to go through different harnesses, etc.

Is it possible to install power locks as you describe onto a base 2 door JL with manual windows?
I dont see why not. Would be even cheaper just buying 2 actuators.
 

Kapoosh1

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I'm going to work on adding power locks to my JLU this weekend. Can someone elaborate on the latch for the tailgate?

You mentioned it's already power, so it just needs to be wired to the key less entry module?
 
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RubenZ

RubenZ

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I'm going to work on adding power locks to my JLU this weekend. Can someone elaborate on the latch for the tailgate?

You mentioned it's already power, so it just needs to be wired to the key less entry module?
Thats what it seems like at least on my 2018 JLU. Now according to some people their 2 doors didn't have the power lock module already. I think it was a 2019 too. Not sure. You can easily find out thought by just removing the Plastic access panel in the tailgate. If you notice the fatter PLUG with the Black, Violet/Orange, Green/Beige and Green/White are all in tact chances are you have the power Latch. You will tap into the Green ones. The Violet is just the Door AJAR sensor.

IMG_5792.jpg
 

Kapoosh1

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This is what mine looks like. I have the colors you mentioned but looks like you have 6 wires and I only have 4..

I’ll have to test it.

6D81377B-AF55-4971-B155-F253CEB5FA5C.jpeg
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