lab16

And another pic of the remote unit. I am too lazy to reduce the size of the pics. That's just temporary. I will probably end up moving it a bit lower because of the wires. The metal wire is there so the remote has something to hang onto. I don't care too much about the look of the wires, just that they might get in the way.

Thanks for the advie. I ended up deciding that I would try to use some of that extra space behind the receiver for the dc adapter, and just wire that in to the same circuits that were going to the radio, bypassing the cig lighter port completely. I already had the aux wire that connects to the back of the receiver going through one of the holes thats right by the glove box, so the power wires for the mp3 player went through the same hole. The mp3 player itself resides in the glove compartment, while a little remote thingy is mounted right by the radio so I can control the playlist. It seems to be working so far, though there are still some wires that go to the remote that need to be managed. I think this might have been the best way to do it, as I don't even know where to start on taking the center dash apart or how to rewire the fusebox. You can see how I wired the dc adapter to the radio in the pic below.

I was planning on hooking my mp3 player to the aux input in my receiver in my 98 contour SE instead of using usb flash sticks to play my music (the receiver wants to scan it every time I start the car, and it takes a while for anything over 8GB to start playing). My mp3 player will be powered from a dc adapter that plugs into my cigarette lighter port. For automation purposes and so I don't have to worry about accidently leaving the charger connected and draining the battery, I wanted to rewire the 12 volt cigarette lighter so that it only has power when the key is in the ignition, the same as the radio. Is there any way to do this that doesn't require taking apart the entire dash and then doing something like rerouting the wires that power the radio to go to the port? I was hoping that there was maybe some easier way to do this via the fusebox. Does anybody have experience in this area?

My right door has long been a source of confusion and annoyment for me. I appear to have a short somewhere, as the power window has never worked (neither from the right or left door controls), and the speaker (which I know is good, as I just took it out and tested it) intermitently goes out. Could the wiring be frayed and worn out somewhere? Could it be a fuse problem (are there any fuse diagram charts out there?), at least for the window? I took a look, and it appears that all of the wires to that door go through the engine compartment, so I'm screwed if its a short, I'll never be able to get to that. Any other thoughts? --thanks Luke

Okay. I thoght that was internal. So even though there were no programming wires under the glovebox doesn't mean that there is not alarm at all (it would just be somewhere else?), and that it could still be possible to get the remote programmed by a professional or the dealer?

Hmm. It would appear that my car is not equipped with one. The 3 white connectors are not present (or just not in the same place), neither is the gray and black box right below them. Above the heater controls, there is a "device" that says "contour" and has a red light that is always blinking. I had assumed that it would have been part of the keyless entry system. Does anyone know what that would be then? I got my car from my dad, who bought it used, and it didn't come with a handbook, so I am in the dark. --thanks Luke

I bought my contour used, and it didn't come with a remote, so I bought one on ebay. However, I have been unable to get the car into programming mode. From what I've read, I would want to be searching for a connector under the glove box (from this: http://www.fordcontour.org/index.php?showtopic=2617 ), but I still can't find it. Does anyone have any pics, or a better description of it (is it directly behind the glove box, or offcenter, etc)? I am very confused about what it should look like. --thanks, luke