Beautiful weather for working on the van. I had most of the morning open and was able to complete the installation of the deadbolt locks on the rear doors. Here are some pictures.
I tested the lock and it works great. When I lock the van from the key fob, the deadbolt throws in the rear doors. It was an interesting project, because there was an electrical connection to make to connect the deadbolt to the factory lock. I was a little nervous to cut into the factory wiring, but the instructions from Thunderbolt were very good and it worked well. The only problem I had with the installation is the rivets that were included with the kit were to big to fit into the holes in the strike plate. So, I went around the corner to Ace Hardware and picked up some smaller rivets that worked great.
Then, it was on to the sliding door. I removed the panel from the door and applied sound deadening and insulation before I had to stop to do some errands. After my errands, I spent about three hours more on the sliding door and successfully installed the deadbolt locks in that door.
The only snag I ran into was at the end when I needed to wire the deadbolt lock mechanism into the Ford wiring harness in the door. There were four wires in the wiring harnes, but I only needed two of them. Ford changed the colors of the harness in 2025, so I had no information about which two of the four wires I needed to splice into. Fortunately, the Thunderbolt technical service was excellent. They answered the phone immediately and texted me pictures of how I needed to wire it up. They also sent me some pictures of how to install the deadbolts in the passenger and driver’s cab doors, which I’ll be doing at a future date.
This second door was easier than the first. The process was similar, so there wasn’t as much reviewing of the instructions or the YouTube videos. I’m hoping the last two doors go smoothly too.