Doors off gremlins explained, and an inexpensive DIY solution!

[kodiakisland]

Yeah, seems silly unlocking it with top and doors off to open the rear gate.

Sponsored

 

[broadicustomworks]

Sorry if I’m missing something here, but if the issue was with the shorting bar not contacting correctly between the 2 pins, couldn’t you just use a short wire connected to the 2 pins in your first picture with spade connectors?
That would complete the circuit the same way the shorting bar would

This was my first thought. A small jumper, short and flexible enough to still let the little weather-resistant door to close. If you could find the right crimp connectors to grab just those two pins.
Maybe a standard spade would work with a bit of alteration?
Either way, a sealed dummy plug someone else mentioned with the jumper built into it also sounded like the way to go.
I'm sure with a bit of time and ingenuity investment one of us will come up with a quick, clean bypass here.
100% appreciate and respect the OP for the info and his time spent drilling down.
I think it is up to the rest of us now to take it to the next level in a solution.
His works, no doubt.
But I feel there is a cleaner, simpler, quicker fix coming.

FWIW mine always gives me about a half dozen alerts about doors off and features that are inop.

The only way I've found to avoid it up until now is to hit the start button without starting first, buckle up, then start it fully. Courtesy of another Forum member for figuring that sequence out for us.

 

[Stroopaloop]

I had all the bells and whistles fo off the very first time I took my doors off. They stopped the next time I started the Bronco. Since rhen, it is just a reminder on the screen. No issues since.

 

[Bmadda]

@Bmadda This is awesome. Could you do me a solid? With doors off, or just unplugged if you've already put them back on; use your fob and lock it. Then open the hood. See if alarm goes off. If the back gate locks like you said you may not even have to use fob to lock it. The reason is, I had a motion alarm installed that was connected to the hood trigger. It was great when doors were on because my Ford app would alert me that hood trigger had gone off and horn alarm would go off. Take doors off and no alarm. You could actually even open the hood. If this solves the trigger issue, I'll put the motion sensor back on.

So my doors are off today and I tried opening the hood. No alarms, then I hit the lock on the fob, waited 10 min or so, and tried opening the hood again...No alarms. I did have the fob in my pocket when I did that, so maybe I will try opening the hood w/out the fob on me just to make sure.

EDIT: tried w/out the fob in my pocket...No alarm

 

[Bmadda]

This was my first thought. A small jumper, short and flexible enough to still let the little weather-resistant door to close. If you could find the right crimp connectors to grab just those two pins.
Maybe a standard spade would work with a bit of alteration?
Either way, a sealed dummy plug someone else mentioned with the jumper built into it also sounded like the way to go.
I'm sure with a bit of time and ingenuity investment one of us will come up with a quick, clean bypass here.
100% appreciate and respect the OP for the info and his time spent drilling down.
I think it is up to the rest of us now to take it to the next level in a solution.
His works, no doubt.
But I feel there is a cleaner, simpler, quicker fix coming.

FWIW mine always gives me about a half dozen alerts about doors off and features that are inop.

The only way I've found to avoid it up until now is to hit the start button without starting first, buckle up, then start it fully. Courtesy of another Forum member for figuring that sequence out for us.

I really think the "dummy plug" idea is the way Ford should have gone in the 1st place, although the shorting bar would be nice to keep for redundancy. I put in my title "inexpensive DIY solution" because that's all I was looking for atm. Nice thing is if Ford started adding dummy plugs to later models, we should be able to get them for our early ones, so long as they don't change the connector!

 

[Bmadda]

Have yet to understand why the didn't build a function into the screen where you could select the doors off individually or all together. It's all software at that point and doesn't need to rely on exposed terminal shorting bars. Have an icon in the cluster that shows doors off or message that self clears upon start up.

Either way, good workaround.

TBH I don't want or need more menu screens to scroll through just because the doors are off. What they came up with was a nice idea, just unreliable. If the doors are intentionally unplugged, the computer should know that. On paper thier way works great, unfortunately the real world sometimes takes a giant dump on engineer's paper!

 

[555-RGNE]

Thanks for taking the time to research this and figure it out. I've been hesitant to take my doors off because of the horror stories from other posters. Now that you've figured out the why and how, I bet there's someone in the community with the capability to run with your dummy plug idea. Sounds like a good Mabett project!

 

[Razorbak86]

Yeah, seems silly unlocking it with top and doors off to open the rear gate.

I think one of the security storage enclosure accessories that fills the cargo bay relies on the swing gate being lockable. Maybe that’s the reason?

 

[GToddC5]

How widespread is this problem? I've gone months now without doors and all I've ever gotten is a random message at startup saying the door electrical is not hooked up. Hit OK and it disappears. Doesn't even happen every time I start.

Same here, one little message, hit OK and ready to go.

 

[ATLBronco75]

If you don’t have a bent pin or corroded short bar other readers may want to just make sure that their weather door is closed completely. I had this problem one time and noticed that my door didn’t flip all the way shut all I had to do is turn the Bronco off make sure the doors were completely closed and turn the Bronco back on.

 

[JediMcMuffin]

Yeah, seems silly unlocking it with top and doors off to open the rear gate.

If you have a cargo area security enclosure or security drawer, this keeps people from accessing those areas even with the door off.

 

[Bmadda]

Thanks for taking the time to research this and figure it out. I've been hesitant to take my doors off because of the horror stories from other posters. Now that you've figured out the why and how, I bet there's someone in the community with the capability to run with your dummy plug idea. Sounds like a good Mabett project!

So I started digging into that idea too. Unfortunately Ford does not sell just the hardshell connector for the doors. You have to buy the whole wire harness that goes in the door. It's not rediculous expensive, $122 per side I think he said, and more suprising...NOT BACKORDERED! So I told him to order me a pair and I will see what I can come up with!

 

[Dangerdad1101]

Seems to me like Ford should have just used a normally closed pressure switch at the back of the port on the door jamb. Something that is held down (open switch) when the plug is in place, but when you remove the doors it closes the switch to ground. This would have been much more reliable, serviceable and corrosion resistant than the bar..

 

[Strykerwsu]

Yeah, seems silly unlocking it with top and doors off to open the rear gate.

I assume they built it like that for the Ford security enclosure boxes and I'm glad that they did for my Diabolical security enclosure.

 

[Strykerwsu]

I assume they built it like that for the Ford security enclosure boxes and I'm glad that they did for my Diabolical security enclosure.

Guess I should have kept reading the thread lol. Also, I have all the door off gremlins. Thanks OP for the idea and I hope that Ford does an over the air software update as Flip suggested.

Sponsored