Removing alarm wiring

[dayndrew]

I'm removing a mass of wire from an old alarm and after market radio in my 91 M3. The old alarm wiring has a few connections spliced into stock wiring. What's the best way to remove these?

Also, what is the orange connection for?

[george graves]

Orange connectors are (almost?) always airbag stuff. Be careful with it. Actually, you shouldn't even touch it with the battery connected.

As far as removing the old alarm - anything that is "tee'ed" into a wire is ok to undo the "T" and remove.

Some alarms have a ignition kill installed. That will be some really thick wiring going to the ignition switch, if you removed that and don't reconnect the factory wiring, the car won't start. But if you unplug the alarm brain, and the car still starts, you don't have that part of the alarm installed.

[dayndrew]

Thanks for the reply.

Air bag makes sense as the original air bag steering wheel is not currently installed.

Alarm was removed long ago. I'm just getting rid of all of the wiring that went along with it.

[reelizmpro]

It will be fairly obvious what needs to be removed. Non OEM splices, T taps, etc like the one pictured are dead give aways. You can carefully pry them back and remove them to remove the wiring. It will leave the stock wires somewhat exposed. You can liquid tape them or wrap them if it's a concern.

[dayndrew]

I removed three taps under the dash. Parasitic drain went from 46 mA to 12 mA. Working my way to the back now as I'm also removing old after-market radio wiring. I found another tap behind the driver's side speaker. Is there any harm in leaving this tap? I would of course protect the exposed wire after cutting it shorter.

[reelizmpro]

That's probably for the dome light/door trigger. Just unplug the white wire connector.

[thmpr464]

I did the same project a week ago and replaced it with the United Security Auto LLC keyless entry unit. Re-soldered and applied heatsink for all re-connections. Recommend to remove all connectors and used the soldering method to insure long term reliability.