Volvo Guard I vs 960

[FezMonki]

Hello everyone, I'm trying to marry a Guard I alarm with a 1992 960 (t16, not whiteblock), and am having some trouble.

I'm aware it's old junk and I should get a universal one off amazon, but I'd really like to get this working instead.

I read somewhere 1992 cars aren't supposed to be pre-wired, but I found this reference on the diagrams for it:


And the car has this plug behind the dash:


Touching one of the two wires from the diagram above in the plug with a ground will lock the doors (but the other does nothing...?), so something's definitely afoot.

That said I could not for the life of me find the (12v constant/12v ignition/12v indicators/ground) plug behind the dash, so I just added four corresponding wires and connected the relay.

The status two leds just start blinking rapidly and pausing, none of the three loop diodes are on, and disconnecting the plug from the dash doesn't change anything. It's really unhappy for some reason and I'd like to find out why.

I assume the dash plug is wired completely wrong for it (the lock/unlock are in the correct positions according to a volvo guard diagram however), but I think my plug is missing the bonnet lock switch wire (I also don't think I have a hood switch or not the push down type anyway). All wire colors are different, while the car side connector with pigtail I got with it had the right colors.

Anyone know where to start aside from just poking the plug with a 12v wire to find out what's what?

- I haven't connected any sensors or horns etc to it, the only thing connected to the "green plug" end of the relay is the status board, does that matter?
- I didn't connect the starter plug, I assume the relay doesn't really care about that (and I'd like to leave it disconnected so it doesn't leave me stranded one day).
- The dash, and headlight switches were disconnected while I experimented, could this matter?
- I didn't install the specific driver-side actuator yet.

Thank you in advance, I know it's a bit of a long shot but I figured someone might have played with these before and know what this alarm will absolutely not tolerate having disconnected to the point it won't even flash the I II III diodes.

[Piet22]

Originally Posted by FezMonki

Touching one of the two wires from the diagram above in the plug with a ground will lock the doors (but the other does nothing...?), so something's definitely afoot.

1. What happens if you try to lock/unlock the doors by means of the key in the drivers door? Essentially this is the same as grounding the wires after the relay.

2. If your 960 was not delivered with an alarm and therefore not pre-wired for use with a remote, the drivers door lock will probably only have a switch and not a motor. An installed remote will therefore lock/unlock all doors except for the drivers door until you install a motor in the drivers door too.

This links to downloadable documentation about the Guard I from Vadis: Link

This links to TP3967 wiring diagrams of 1992 960: Link

[FezMonki]

Thank you for your input, alright so:

1. The driver's door lock works fine and unlocks/locks all the doors. I tried again and only the locking wire works in the plug behind the cluster, the GRN/BLK wire won't unlock the doors. Grounding any other wire in the plug doesn't do anything either. I'm assuming something is either wired incorrectly, or the GRN/BLK wire is broken somewhere (unlikely though).

2. It did not come prewired but I do have the required lock ready to install. I'm not sure if there's a pre-wired second plug for it though. I also assume this isn't currently interfering with the alarm, however, so I'm leaving it for when the thing decides to play nice.

I think my main issue is I need to know what are the minimum required connections for the alarm to "work" and work from there, even if the relay just clicks on its own for now it would be a good starting point. I basically need to establish if it's at all possible to use it without butchering the cars wiring.

[Forrest]

I suspect that a 1992 car would have been pre-wired for the earlier “basic alarm” rather than the Volvoguard 1. This will be why you don’t have enough connections.

The wiring diagram linked above shows the alarm wiring on page 108. The wiring colours on the “connector for anti-theft alarm, 8-pin” (21/2) seem to tally with the 8-pin connector you’ve found.

To make the Volvoguard 1 work you’ll need to connect the status panel that is normally mounted on the A-post which also contains the RF receiver.

Beyond that it would be a case of comparing the two wiring diagrams and connecting the essential wires from the loom that came with your Volvoguard 1 system to the correct pins in that connector and picking up any missing signals from elsewhere.

I expect their are some functions you needn’t connect, e.g the rudimentary immobiliser, if all you want is an alarm and remote central locking.

It would probably be easier to obtain the system that was designed to be plug and play with your car but that said I’ve never seen one nor very much information about the earlier basic system.

[FezMonki]

Perfect, thank you for pointing me to page 108. It does match up with my plug and car.

I compared it with a 1995 940 diagram which should match the Guard and the first 5 pins (L-Indicator/R-Indicator/Door Switch/Lock/Unlock) are the same at the same pin, the last three differ.

My 6 and 7 go to all door switches (not sure why, wouldn't central locking take care of that?), while on the 940/Guard, 6 goes to trunk, 7 to hood and 8 to the alarm horn.

So assuming that trunk/hood switches are open when closed and ground when opens (or are they the other way around?), could I just delicately remove pins 6 and 7 from the plug for now (for science), and that should tell the Guard that hood and trunk are closed?

That said, the A-Post panel is connected and is blinking and pausing, but if the hood and trunk switches are what it's objecting to, I would've thought the panel should've indicated that, unless the 6 and 7 pins on my connector are outright messing it up.

[Forrest]

Can you not test and see what happens at pins 6 and 7 when the doors are opened and closed? I’d have expected them to connect to ground when a door was opened and presumably be open circuit when all the doors are closed. That is what the sensor loops will be expecting.

Have you got the manual for the Volvoguard 1? The one I mean is 18 pages long with lots of pictures and explains how to programme functions. Try Googling “volvo-guard-alarm-i-service-manual”.

Whilst the alarm might be expecting loops I and II to be doors and bonnet/boot respectively since their mode of operation will be the same it shouldn’t matter if yours are connected differently at least for testing purposes.

When all the doors are closed and the alarm is not set there should be no LEDs flashing on the status panel unless the alarm has been activated.