Finally decided to tackle the window gear clean-up this week (after my driver's side cable decided to slip off). Everything came out fine but I had a couple quick questions: - Has this motor been modified or replaced (see picture)? I've seen lots of pictures of window motors on fchat but none of them have the sealing adhesive nor do they have the red box (see pic). - Does the "hardened grease causing slow windows" theory apply to my worm gear? As can be seen, there is some hardened grease, but not nearly as much as shown in other pictures where the worm gear seems to be encased in it. Thanks! Jason Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Hey, sorry I'm not really of any help with mechanical knowledge, but just yesterday I watched a video about the grease issue on a 308 and I thought, maybe it will be of help. If not, sorry for bothering you.
This is probably the best tutorial for doing the 308 slow window fix. Thank you to Franny for doing this.
I have never seen a motor with the red box before. My guess is that it is from some other car. My 100% conjecture guess is that it is some kind of circuit breaker to prevent a stalled motor from causing issues.
This was a totally lucky guess, but all of the Italian cars of this era shared all kinds of parts, so a good chance. I first googled alfa romeo window motor and didn't see anything. Then I googles Maserati window motor. Well, lookee there. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Nice find, Brian! This confirms my suspicion -- the window system (at least the drivers side) has been rebuild at some point in its past. The fact that there were only "remnants" of the hardened green grease on the motor and the diff't motor are strong indicators. Whomever did the rebuild seems to have done a nice job, including paint pen'ing all of the fasteners. A great touch. So why the slow-ish windows? It's not all back together yet, but I'm pretty sure the issue is the switches. As has been documented in many other threads, the high current through a non-vacuum sealed contact means *lots* of arcing which means pitting and corrosion. I've pulled apart the two driver's side switches (they're on the door for all the non-carb 308 folk) and sure enough, they were rough. Image Unavailable, Please Login And, of course, as the contacts wear out, that means high resistance which means *heat*. Check out the plastic on the plungers (ignore the "LED" and "Diode" labels...that was from a previous project and an unfortunate placement in the picture). Image Unavailable, Please Login
Before taking them apart, I checked out the resistance across the contacts: - The "at rest" circuit was at about 2 milliohms (that's very low). This makes sense as this circuit doesn't ever carry any current load (except for a brief spike when turning off the motor). - The "engage" circuit was at 0.8 - 1 ohm (that's wicked high). In other words, I'd guess there was at least a 3-5V drop across the switch. This is a direct result of the arcing on both "make" and "break" of that window circuit over time. Which happens on every single activation of the window. Ultimately, this corrosion/pitting would mean roughly 3-5W of heat, which clearly wasn't great for the plastic. After cleanup (see pic below), both circuits are now measuring less than 2 milliohms. I'm hoping this makes a major difference in the window speed. Image Unavailable, Please Login
So can we expect an upgraded window motor mechanism in the future from turtle farmer industries? Hint hint can put me down for a pair right now!
