Help! How does an aftermarket 'Viper C30' security system get disconnected?

[BostonGreen318]

There have been a collection of ongoing electrical anomalies with my 1994 318is. These would include:

• Battery drains if the car sits for a day or more (from 12 volts down to 8 and change).
• Analog climate control works intermittently. Occasionally, A/C, defrost, and recycle activate automatically and refuse to shut off. Other times, these systems don’t respond at all.
• Engine has twice stalled when headlights were activated.
• When car is first started, digital display of instrument cluster will cut digits in half until another electrical component is turned on.

I’ve discovered an after-market ‘Viper C30’ security system which may very well be the culprit of some or all of these issues. I would like to disconnect it ASAP. Below is a link to a set of photos describing what I’ve found. I’m not all that electrically inclined so please forgive the very amateurish explanations. Any advice would greatly help.

http://s1196.photobucket.com/albums/...ostonGreen318/

[Big Evil]

Good Christ, it looks like an epileptic monkey with a hacksaw installed that thing. First I'd unplug and remove the box, the back trace the harness that was in it, remove the wires and fix the main harness. Do that with all the installed aftermarket stuff associated with it and see if that doesn't solve your problems. It's going to take some time to undo all of that but it should be worth it.

[BostonGreen318]

After uncovering this little discovery, I noticed that the clear box (shown in photos) made a noise similar to that of a turn indicator after the engine was shut off. There was also the mysterious yellow green light that glowed inside the clear plastic. All this led me to believe that the Viper system was draining juice from the battery. Total extraction was, for me at least, the only remedy.

[BostonGreen318]

The goal in adding to this thread is to provide a reference point should other members suffer a similar headache. Since removal, the phantom battery drain has vanished. For a layman, the most effective strategy for extracting the system was differentiating which wires and components were aftermarket and which were the originals. Please use the previously attached set of photos for clarification.

Thanks Big Evil for the advice!

1) Started w/ the solid green (aftermarket) that attaches to an original brn/blu/yel striped wire underneath glovebox. Solution -- Disconnect green and repair brn/blu/yel original.

2) Solid green (aftermarket) runs back behind center console and attaches to another dark green (aftermarket) wire on left side. The dark green runs from the back of primary harness and up to another brn/blu/yel striped wire situated behind driver's side dashboard. Solution -- Disconnect dark green and repair brn/blu/yel original.

3) From back of black relay harness a heavy gauge yellow (appears aftermarket) attaches to a grn/blk stripe (appears original) wire. The heavy gauge orange (appears aftermarket), which also originates from the back of black relay harness, attaches to another grn/blk striped wire that comes out from steering column harness. The assumption was that the grn/blk stripe was original and severed to accommodate the orange and yellow (aftermarket?) wires. Solution – Disconnect heavy gauge yellow and orange and repair grn/blk stripe.

4) Next, a lesser gauge yellow (aftermarket) also travels from rear of primary harness to a solid green (original) that plugs into wire harness extending out from steering column. Solution – Disconnect yellow and repair solid green.

5) A white wire (aftermarket) extends out from the primary harness into a brown colored fuse, connects to a set of diodes, finally attaching to an original set of gry/prpl stripe and gry/yel stripe wires. Solution – Disconnect white from gry/prpl and gry/yel stripe and repair each.

6) The twisted mystery blk/red/brn wire described in the photos ran from behind carpet on driver’s side and back over to passenger side where the brown happened to be spliced with another red. I realize this is confusing but I’m only reporting what was found. This red wire then led into engine compartment and attached to the positive battery jump starting post, positioned behind right front strut tower. I realized, of course, this must be the power supply for the entire Viper system. As far as the blk/red set goes, these also ran into engine compartment and were at one time connected to a siren horn. Solution – Disconnect power supply wire from battery jump post (see last photo) and simply remove the blk/red associated with siren.

I know this is a lot to process and not every aftermarket security system will be rigged this way but I hope this post may shed some light on the specifics of removal. Thanks for plodding through it and good luck should you come across this problem.