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.

 

Henkie -

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

"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.

 

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?

 

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