ccis2cunning

tl:dr - I am trying to physically locate the 4 'door ajar' sensor wires in my 2009 WK Jeep Grand Cherokee to trigger my powersteps deployment when the doors open.

There isn't a kit for the WK, so i choose a 4 door wrangler step kit to adapt. I have the step brackets attached to the WK, step motors installed and the main power wiring connected. When connected the brackets fully retracted as expected. I have the 4 trigger wires thru the firewall and into the cab. I have removed the Driver and Passenger door sill trim and located the 2 bunches of wires.
I located This wiring diagram (INTERIOR LIGHTS – Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo 2009 – SYSTEM WIRING DIAGRAMS – Wiring diagrams for cars) which (supposedly) describes colored wires for the corresponding door ajar sensors in the 2009 WK, but the colors don't match to what i am seeing on my jeep.

• No Violet colored wires on the passenger side sill
• The Violet-white wire (found under drivers sill) is an always on signal not corresponding to any door action.
• The Violet and Violet-Yellow are not activated by any door action.
• I did have success with the Violet-Grey wire as a trigger for the rear drivers door and it behaves as expected. This tells me that the rest of my set up is correct (or i am extremely 'lucky' and have compounded errors which simulate success).

Any knowledge of the location and color of the door ajar wires for DF//PF//PR on a 2009 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7L Overland is appreciated.

Other information
I am installing a powerstep kit designed for the 4 door Wrangler ('07-'18 JK AMP part# 75122-10A) powerstep kit instructions (https://www.4wheelparts.com/sku/AMP-...JK4DR_2007.pdf). Some light welding to create holders for the stock powerstep brackets allowed me to mount to the pinch weld and a small angle bracket welded to the frame allowed me to brace the step mounts. I trimmed the aluminum extruded steps by 2 inches to fit between my 35's and some extensions for the battery wires were the only mods required. That makes it sound easy, but i also had to teach myself to weld and honestly it is not 100% complete yet, so . . . .

I couldn't find any relevant search results on this forum, I found this jeepgarage post Illuminated Door Sill Guards which had the following installation guide providing power from the under-dash light. Any door open would drive motors on both sides and lower both steps. Not the ideal outcome for any tight parking situations. I continue to search. thanks for any help.
​​​​​​​Chris

ccis2cunning

I spent some additional time under the driver side dash looking at wires, trying to narrow things down. Took the following approach:

• There are close to 150 wires going through the sill.
• Assumed the DF door ajar sensor wire comes from the door. That would be via the rubber conduit in upper left of the picture below.
• I could not get to a bundle of wires directly on the other side of the conduit (too deep in dash) but did find a bunch that comes out just below it.
• Followed that bundle to just under the hood release (see the loose wires in the picture below)
• This narrowed down the number of wires to about 30-35.
• Of those 35, I ignored (for now) any paired wires (twisted together) or thicker wires (my successful DR door wire was thinner, i assume similar wire gauge). Those are taped in the orange electrical tape in the picture.
• This left about 12 wires of various colors. I posi-tapped them 1 by 1 to see if they triggered the step.
• About a third of them were hot (active) and triggered the step, but when i closed the door, the step did not retract, so. . . not the door ajar wire.

Next step is to test the paired wires which i initially ignored.
After that i think i go into the big branch of wire flowing in the sill.
I am not excited to dig deeper behind the dash for another bunch of wires.


2009 WK Drivers Front wires