348: Help needed please. Can't solve the Window issue

Henkie; What's your other problem (mentioned in post #1)?

 

Curiosity killed the cat

OK, my slow windows got the best of me.... and I opened up both doors and the door jamb connections. Here's what I've got:

1. Driver's window always worked fine, plenty of speed.

2. Passenger window worked "mediocore" from passenger side; from the driver's side, it was glacial.

3. Door jamb connections in passenger door look clean and tight. Nevertheless I applied lots of contact cleaner and Stabilant.

4. Installed a new switch in the passenger side -- just because I had them in inventory, and they're pretty cheap.

5. Driver's switches are an absolute abortion. Prior owner seems to have used wire nuts, in-line splices, and crimps throughout the connections on driver & passenger switches. It appears that extra ground wires have been run from the switches onto bodywork within the door itself. It was so scary that I almost cried. Literally.

6. New switches installed in drivers door -- the abortion of wiring was left alone (for the time being). My old switches didn't "click" properly, and I figured it couldn't hurt to put new ones in.

7. Drivers door jamb seemed ok -- until I touched it !!! ARRRG... two wires have now come completely detached. If I jiggle it, I can get the passenger window to operate in it's miserable speed. If I don't touch it, I get no movement on the passenger side, although the passenger-side switch is illuminated.

8. I'm convinced I need to rewire per Miltonian's example. It is absolutely clear there's growing resistance in that bundle of cables that kills the passenger side motor as it reaches the top of the path. Rewiring the door switches won't be much fun.

9. I did finally get the cajones to remove the passenger side door strake -- just to see what's in there. Wow... pretty darn easy. In fact, for anybody doing work on the windows or speakers, it'd be silly to work from the inside alone. Removing the strakes makes everything easier, and permits lots of light into an otherwise dark place.

10. I'll do the door jamb this weekend. Any tips Miltonian? Anybody in the Carolinas want to help? I'll provide an un-airconditioned garage and plenty of free beer.

-Daniel

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Out of curiousity, with the strakes out...did you try to grease the tracks the door window slide up and down on. I have read some threads that this will improve speed as much as putting in a new motor will. Figured since you got the strake out already, you could let us know if this tip is helpful or not. Good luck with it all.

 

Miltonian: perhaps I should make a new post about it, as I don't want to mess up this one for the "search enigine".

It's the airco (it's supposed to be an airco).
It worked (but only cooled very poor) last week, but now I just get E1 / E2 and a few times E5.

Will make a new post when I get home, have to go to work now.
Perhaps you could already give your thoughts / opinion a twist ;-)

Till later, thanks for your great efforts !

 

I apologize.... had a fever. Was almost dead, but survived.

So I made the 2 new wires, but the problem is still there.
If you have a spare moment and go back to my post #18 (2nd pic) and you can see that in fact more wires are crappy.
So I'm going all the way, like in Miltonian's link and do all wires.
I simply have no trust in the wires / connector anymore and I'm running out of fuses ;-)

 

Henkie -

I'm doing my wires this weekend too! Probably on Sunday... I'll try to take lots of pictures.

 

I have just used 2 towels for all my tears. And I used another for all the sweat what came off my head during the process....

So I re-wired the whole left door connector. It took me a full day as there are 18 different colours wires, and of course I have only three. So I had to push it through 2 connectors etc etc... drilling also a bit, the whole thing.

And the result ? I STILL HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM !!! I get crazy....

My connector looked like ****, but seemed to work anyway :-(

To remind you about my problem... When I want to open the pass window with the switch on the driver's site.... the fuse in the footcompartment blows.. When I use the switch to open it the light in the switch at the pass site goes out....but the window moves. When I try to close it...the same second the fuse blows. Any help or ideas are highly appreciated....

Few pics from the process:
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Ugh, I feel your pain! There has GOT to be a short somewhere in the wires going to that fuse...it has got to be grounding out somewhere...the only thing i can thing of is to try to narrow down the area....maybe splice the wire at the fuse and run it directly to the going to the switch. Don't worry about making it pretty, just connect it up to try to find what side of the fuse the short is coming from. If you can figure that out, then take the time and re-wire that side with a clean install AFTER you wire it and connect it to make sure it is working properly. These problems are the worst, where you have to hunt down the ground, but eliminating what side of the fuse its on narrows your search down in half.

 

Dear Lord.... I started to do my window cables today too. 8 hours later, I have a bloody mess of wires (but everything works), and one aching back.

I got everything to work properly, except the passenger window is no faster than before. I think tomorrow, I'll do everything again with a heavier guage wire. Mine looks like **** right now, but I'll get everything put back tomorrow -- or I'll give up and just buy a new harness.

Henkie and Miltonian -- WHERE DO YOU STUFF ALL THE EXCESS WIRE AND BUTT JOINTS? I've got a clump of wiring in the wheel well that is a recipe for disaster.

 

Did you try to grease the door tracks? I have read some posts that people substantially improved door speed by greasing the tracks..

 

I haven't been keeping up to date with this, sorry!

Henkie, I'm really sorry you are still having fuses blow, that seems strange. Getting back to an earlier question, do you have any extra accessories in your 348 that may have required holes drilled and screws installed? Maybe extra door speakers, or an amplifier, or a CD changer? I'm wondering if perhaps there is a screw somewhere going into the wiring harness. I'll look at my car and see if I can come up with any ideas.

Daniel, the pictures in my link in the earlier post show what I did with the wire bundles after splicing in the new wire. There is lots of room inside the door, and I didn't have much trouble fitting the bundle behind the inner fender liner. It's a bit tighter than before, but I don't recall spending more than a minute or two pushing it into a comfortable spot after it was all taped over.

The biggest problem when I did the job was that I didn't have enough room around the car, and I couldn't close the door while I was splicing, so I had to go back and forth, back and forth, over and over, around the back of the car, to get from the door area to the wheel area.

My right door window still does not operate as quickly as I would like, but I haven't done the bypass on the right connector yet. I have been checking the wires regularly where they now pass directly through the left jamb, and there is no indication at all that they are under any stress from opening and closing the door.

 

In the door there's lot of room. Like Miltonian I ripped off the bodywork from the outside, to see what I was doing. From the inside you can't see anything or you have to take the whole door apart, also the inner-steel plate.

Also from the outside (wheel section) there was enough space to hide the bundle of wires again. Just had to push the plastic part a bit when reinstalling.

 

They were fully greased. I suppose it has been done during a maintenance at the dealer once.

 

Hey Miltonian... where were you ? Leaving us with all the sjit huh ? ;-)

No, the doorspeakers are still OE (=crap) and no Amplifier. I mounted a cd changer myself, together with a Becker High Speed navi.

I would like to have your opinion if possible about the following :

 

As I am still busy with the same matter (last night I had my 3rd night in the garage) I want to know if I have a failure with the following:

As you can see on the pics this are the window switches on the drivers site.
I did some checkings with the piece on the pic, to see if there is power somewhere and where not. Cheap thing, but works great already for 15 years.

I did the check with both the connectors pulled OFF the switches, as the results are different with the wireconnectors ON the switches. (???!!!)

So they are OFF. (The pic is with the connectors mounted, sorry) and ignition is on.
When I take the middle switch for the driver's window I found out that the white center wire is a + and the light on my gear turns red when I make contact with my thingy to both the black wires (other side). When I make contact to the yellow and blue wire, the red light doesn't burn. So the 2 black wires are the -(minus) only.

Now I take the right connector from the pass window. The white wire is the power (+) again of course so I put the +side of my gear on that point. When I put my thing (other side, looking for a minus to get the red light on) on both the black wires the red light goes on, as I found both times a minus. All ok, till now....
BUT, when I pount the minus side of my gear on the other colours of the connector (yellow,green and yellow/red) I have the red light also !!!! As all the other wires from this connector are a minus besides the white one(+) ???

This can't be right ??

And now with both connectors mounted:
So I measure at the back side with my power-meter thingy..
Now with both the switches the white center wire is the power+
and I get the red lamp burning when touching all the other wires. So all wires are a -minus now. Except for the center white of course.

How can there be differences with the connectors mounted / not mounted ? I mean, I am not pushing switches !

There should (??) be a failure in the pass switchwires, but this only shows the same +/- result with the connector on or off.

Nice detail, when you disconnect the pass switch at the driver's site the window switch at the pass side doesnt work neither. It has to be connected on both sides.

Can you still follow it ? Have time to read this again ? Thanks !!!!!!!
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J.F.C. (if you know what that means) !!

I rewired that ****ing loom in the drivers door TWICE this weekend, and the passenger window still runs too slowly. The drivers window works perfectly, fast and furious. From the passenger side, the passenger window is fast going down and mediocre going up. At the top of the track is positively crawls and needs to be "helped" with a gently pull on the glass.

From the drivers side, getting the passenger window to go up takes an eternity. In fact, I think by the time the window reaches the top of the track, Minardi will be world champions of F1. :-(

I'm inches from buying a new wiring loom for both doors ($3K). To add insult to injury, everying in the drivers door works except the radio speaker. I'll be damned if I'm going to unwrap that bundle and start over....

I'd like to shove 12V directly onto the passenger door and see what happens. Using my battery tender as a power source, is there a safe way to do this?

What a POS those pins are.

 

At least you have no fuses exploding all the time...
It's driving me nuts...

When I say **** it will be edited I guess.... !

 

"WHERE DO YOU STUFF ALL THE EXCESS WIRE AND BUTT JOINTS? I've got a clump of wiring in the wheel well that is a recipe for disaster"

A bit of a tip to anyone doing this is to 'stagger' the joints by cutting the wire all different lengths over 2-3 inches. I just did one side like this with solder and heatshrink - the taped-up join is pretty neat.

 

Chris -

Tell me about the window speed in your car.... How does it work on the passenger window from the driver's door?

 

Daniel,
The window speed was never really bothered me in mine - it was the central locking and speaker wires breaking that prompted me to do the bypass. I did 'time' (one elephant, two elephant..) the drivers window 'up' before and after though. 6secs before (clean connector) 4secs after.

Not done much with the passenger side yet - it is slow to go the last half inch (top rubber seal) from either switch, pretty quick up to then. Cleaning the connector sorted this - for about 2 more operations. I'll do the bypass when I have another couple of evenings free.

Chris.

 

I just thought of something.

Why don't you try swaping the window motors from on side to the other. Then if you have the problem on the other side, it may be that the motor is on the way out.

 

Wished that just someone would pull the switches out on the driversside and tell me if they get the same results... :- (

 

Henkie, what happens when you hook everything up on the drivers door (all wires and switches) and disconnect the pin connector at the passengers door, then operate the switch for the passengers window on the drivers door? Does it still blow the fuse?

 

Hey Miltonian...

I bought some fuses again, so I can make some flashes again, heh heh..
Nah, in fact the matter drives me nuts. Thanks for your input again.

I did what you mention. When I disconnect the pass door connector, the fuse stays alive when pushing the pass switch (up/down) on the driver's site.

I tripple-checked again something. (3 fuses buried).
When I open my pass window from the driver's side, the green light in the pass switch at the pass side goes out. The window moves down though. In fact it seems to go down all the time, but the fuse blows when I try to close the window at the pass side (with the pass switch at the driver's side).
So the problem is closing...

Does your green light in the switch from the pass side) also goes out when opening the window at the pass side from the driver's side ?

I think I know what will be next, as it seems that all is connected (left / right window switches..) I have to do the right door-connectors-removal as well..... :- (

 

Mine does. It absolutely goes "black" when being operated from the driver side.