Alarm Be Gone
One of the things that I inherited with the 308 was a 80's era alarm system. This was a keypad style with the keypad in plain sight screwed through the removable panel covering the fuse area.
However, recently I had to replace the fuse panel with a modern blade style one and I noticed that the wiring from the keypad led into the passenger foot well. It turns out that there is a panel there that covers a triangular space. Ferrari has some electrical items mounted on the panel, but the rest of the foot well is normally empty. I removed the carpet and unscrewed the panel, finding three boxes beyond the Ferrari parts.
Aha, I thought, maybe it won't be too difficult to get rid of the alarm system. I took a picture of the top box and yes, it was from an alarm company.
I had never been able to find anything on the web about the alarm system and even with this additional information, the company seems to be long gone. The only thing I found was a CA company registration that was last renewed in 1982.
I started extracting the boxes, first labeling any wiring I had to disconnect. That way, if I couldn't get it removed, I could put it back together. Since the keypad wired when through a hole in the fuse area cover panel, I had to cut them.
I removed the two other boxes and it turns out that they are part of the Blaupunkt Bamberg radio. But this allowed me to vacuum the area clean.
Stuck in the back was a broken off piece of plastic. It turns out that it was from the rear of the drain pan under the A/C evaporator. You can see the drain line coming off the pan on the left and leading through the carper and fire wall to drain outside. Of course, with the part broken, the water probably just drains down on the floor. Being in Seattle, I don't need to use the A/C much, but I'll try to glue it back together if possible. The alarm box was just loose, so I don't know if they had to break the plastic to make room or it got broken from the box being bounced around while driving.
The other thing I was was the thermostat tube leading from the A/C sensor to the control on the console. I had broken this several years ago and bought a replacement part, but never installed it. Now that I have an idea where it goes, it may not be as difficult of task that I had imagined.
Now down to the nitty gritty. In addition to the keypad wiring, there was a bundle of 11 wires running up behind the fuse panel area. One of these ran forward and out of sight into the dash area.
I started tracing these and found the following:
One led to the immobilizer switch mounted on the fuse panel with the other side
of the switch coming from battery power.
Another led to the low/hi beam fuse and this would cause the parking, side
marker and tail lights to flash.
One pair led to a motion detector switch mounted above the fuse panel under
the dash. This would set off the alarm if it was lifted or towed (or an
earthquake shook the car).
One led to the passenger door switch that would detect if interior light came on
as a result of either door being opened.
One was battery power and another was ground.
The two green wires were the critical ones. One came from the ignition
switch wire in RUN position and the other led back to the fuse panel where the
ignition switch wire normally goes. This is how the alarm system prevented
the car from being started.
There was an additional wire from the RUN wire too. I think that this was used
to let the keypad only disable the alarm when the ignition was in the RUN
position so you couldn't disable the alarm without having the key.
The last one was for the siren.
The nice thing was that they hadn't cut any wires, but used the splice clips that fit over a wire and pierce the insulation to allow another wire to be spliced at that point. So I only had to remove the clip and tape over the pierced insulation. For the wire from the ignition, they had disconnected it from the fuse panel and fit the green wire with a male spade connector to run it to the alarm. The green return wire simply connected to the fuse panel. So it was just a matter of removing the male spade connector and reconnecting the female end of the ignition wire back to the fuse panel.
The last wire was the one leading unto the dash area. Since the siren was in right headlight area, I figured that this was the lead for that. A quick jumper from a hot fuse and touching that wire confirmed it was when the siren went off. In following the wire up front, I found the siren tucked next the the right headlight motor, under the ventilation grille. I never have had these grilles off, but it turns out that you just take off the two rear screws and the whole thing rotates up and forward. Then I was able to remove the siren and pull the whole wire from inside the car. After removing the siren and bracket, I was left with four holes that would let water from the tire spray through them. So I used some short pop rivets fill the holes.
The last thing was to remove the keypad from the cover panel. This left a couple of screw holes and a hole where the wires went through. I had thought I had bought replacement vinyl to recover this panel, but when I looked, it was a replacement to the targa top cover that's behind the seats. Rutland's shows it as available, so I have a message into them. If not, I'll see if the upholstery guy doing the coupe has the right material. Until then, a couple pieces of black electrical tape covers the hole. I thought I had some black duct tape, but can't find it.
I'm quite glad to have the alarm gone. It was annoying plus I had to keep a trickle charger running as the alarm would drain the battery in a couple of weeks. I also took the time to wire in the radar detector and GPS units. Here's a picture with everything back together.
