Freightliner Thomas FS65 Vandalock Delete- How to

[Cam_R]

Hello I would like to introduce myself as I am new to the forum and to joining the Skoolie journey! I have been an observer to this forum for awhile and have learned a great deal.. and I’m proud to say that I have recently acquired a bus of my own. I spent months bidding (and losing) on buses online, but the wait was worth it and I ended up getting a great bus at a very reasonable price. The amount of fun driving it the 1000 miles home definitely made me eager to get to work on it!

So like a lot of y’all, one of the steps in the conversion was to delete the vandalock. The bus I have is an 02 FS65 and I have not found much info on them.. unlike some I’ve seen.. I don’t have an access door on the side for the electrical panel (you have to take the switch panel off to access the wiring).. so if you have something similar this may be helpful to you. The vandalock buzzer is located in this cabinet.. but not the wiring that controls the vandalock. So next I removed the ignition switch to see if I could get a lead there.. but unfortunately all the wires were the same color! This left me stumped for a bit but found later that it’s actually really simple to delete the ignition lockout on this bus. The relay that controls the vandalock is located under the drivers footwell (by the “dead pedal” refer to the pics for the location). You’ll find striped purple wires as well as a yellow wire going to that relay. One of the purple wires is going to a jumper wire on the relay and the other is located separately on the relay. Simply omit the jumper and splice the two striped purple wires together.. and you’ll have no more ignition lockout and a spare relay! You can remove the buzzer as well.. but I chose to leave mine in as I found it’s actually helpful to know if any of the emergency exits are open. Hope this helps someone!

Btw in the journey to delete the ignition lockout I contacted Thomas in Houston and they were extremely helpful! They gave me a complete wiring diagram for the interior electronics (including vandalock) so if any of y’all need something specifically or all of it (if it’s possible to send a pdf that large) just PM me and I’ll send it over

[Theraisin]

Thank you so much! Any chance you could send me those wiring diagrams. Thank you thank you!!

[Clonindm20]

Could I please have a copy of the wiring diagram? And what do you mean by omit the yellow wire and splice the two remaining purple?

[Terridax]

This is the only thread I can find that applies to my skoolie, and I don't understand what the OP means by saying "Simply omit the jumper and splice the two striped purple wires together."... what do I do with the yellow wire? Do I leave it attached to the relay in place? Cap it and remove the relay?

[ewo1]

https://www.skoolie.net/forums/f10/h...ock-10956.html


https://www.skoolie.net/forums/f49/0...ock-37386.html

[nikitis]

I think you're simply connecting the circuit, it has to be always on. So by bypassing the relay it's always on at the box instead of requiring the interlock to be connected.

[jasd36]

My 2004 Thomas Freightliner FS 65was the same as this original post. Been looking around off and on trying to track it down before removing some unneeded wiring then saw this post. Found it in the same location by the drivers left foot with the same purple wires with white stripes. Just remove the jumper and splice the two purple wires with white stripes together. Nothing needed to happen to the yellow ground. Then just remove the buzzer from the back.




Hope this helps someone.