Are you as fed up as I am when locking/unlocking your brick with the remote clicker and you have to stand 2 inches on top of it and hold your finger to your nose before it unlocks??

Wouldn't it be nice to zap it from 50 feet away and hear the reassuring 'clunk'??

Well, fellas I found the fix!

I was into another project today and happened across the central locking transciever unit which is mounted atop the center of the steering column.

It slides right out and one wire harness disconnects easily.

Take the unit to a clean bench and remove the 4 screws that hold the case together. Seperate the 2 halves.

There are 2 PC boards atop one another. The bottom one has all the guts. The top one has 4 wires going to it that terminate at a single grounding trace.

*** THAT IS YOUR ANTENNA *** !!!!

I swear before the Sages of the BrickBoard...that is what Volvo uses for an antenna.........a 3 inch foil trace buried deep in the bowels of your brick!!

Now the fix...

Take a piece of ultra fine sandpaper and remove a spot of the green PCB varnish at the end of that trace. Do this until you see a shiny silver trace peeking through.

Find an old DC toy motor and crack it open, remove the armature. The copper windings inside are about a 38 ga. wire. This makes an EXCELLENT antenna. Unwind about 36" and straighten it out.

Take one end and hold the last 1/2" to a flame. This will cook off the insulation, it's way too fine to use a stripper.

Using a 20-30 watt soldering iron and rosin solder, attach the bare end of the wire to that cleaned trace.

Lay the wire down in the connector cavity and button it back up.

Reinstall the unit in the car.

Thread this long wire up over the steering column and over to the free loom that passes thru the firewall just next to the Motronic brain. It helps to tape the end to a straightened coat hanger and fish it up in to the engine compartment. Pull it through completely til no slack.

See the weather strippping seal that spans the engine bay, just south of the wiper arms? Lift it up from the drivers side and pull it up to the middle of the span...

Now lay your wire down inside of it and push the seal back down on the metal stay. This does to things;

1. It makes the job nice and neat

2. It gets your antenna up and out of the cars interior so it does a much better job.

The good news? I can pop my locks from 120 feet away!!!

HEY! It doesn't take much to get me excited.......... but I know a few of you have mentioned this problem, especially you 850 folks.

Tom