Advice on removing Viper alarm system

I am thinking about removing an alarm system from my car, and was hoping some others who are more familiar with these things could share a little insight, as I know pretty much squat about alarm systems. Reasons for removing it are my battery has a slow drain if the car stays parked for a week or two, and I am basically wanting to ward off any potential future electrical problems. I don't want to end up stranded because my alarm system decides to go nuts on me one day.

As best I can tell, the car has two devices in it. A Viper alarm system (the stupid talking kind....it would go perfectly in a 1989 nissan lowrider pickup) and some sort of pager device made by DEI that is spliced into the radio and Viper alarm circuit. There are also a few sensors hidden away under the dash, an on-off toggle switch hidden under the driver's footwell carpet, and a tiny unmarked push button switch under the same carpet. Both of these switches are wired into a smaller DEI box under the dash (the main DEI pager box was in the center console by the radio). The wiring looks pretty well done, but uses a lot of crimp connectors.

Anyhow, I am worried that if I just go yank all this stuff out the car will then not start due to me interrupting some ignition circuit or whatever. As best I can tell from all the wiring I have found so far, all the wires running to any of this stuff use "T" fittings to tap into the factory wiring. In other words the kind that clip around the original factory wire and pierce the insulation with a sharp point, thus leaving the original wires un-cut. Then they have leads running off to the various alarm boxes. So this leads me to believe that the alarm as a whole is more or less running "in parallel" with all the factory connections, as opposed to any of the factory wiring "running through" the alarm. Therefore I could just yank out the alarm, leaving all the factory wiring intact and the car working correctly, right?

That just sounds too easy to be true, so I haven't pulled the trigger yet. Any advice from others that have removed cheesy 1990's alarm systems? I know there are many people here with much better knowledge about these systems than me, so I am looking forward to hearing from some of them!

 

Sounds good. I can see where about 80% of the wires lead to, and they are all T-splice type connectors. Hopefully the other 20% are as well. I was mainly worried that, for example, the main lead to the ignition was typically cut at some point and either end of that run into the control box, thus leaving an open circuit when the system was removed.

 

Correct. One of the wires from the ignition switch was cut and spliced through the box. Actually to a relay that was connected to the box. Anyhow, I finally got it all out. I have never clipped so many zip-ties in my life. I swear I must have taken out 10-15 pounds worth of control boxes, wires, speakers, sensors, relays, wires, and assorted crap. In addition to the ignition lead that was cut, I had to repair two other wires from the ignition switch harness where the t-splice connectors sliced through about half of the copper threads inside the wires. I used solder and heat shrink tubing to re-connect the wires, so they should be secure for the long haul. After getting everything back together I tried cranking the car and it fired right up, so looks like I came out ok. Now I have to take the door panels off to get the door locks working with the key, as before they only worked with the remote.

Thanks so much for the advice!

Nathan