Re: window motor

[steveb@falcon.kla-tencor.com (Steven Buchholz)]

> hello all, I have another question...  I seem to have a bad motor for the
> rear window in my 5000.  It went down but would not go back up.  I have
> everything disasembled except the lower bracket that mounts into the plastic
> cradle that the window rests on.  I am assuming the whole cable and motor
> mechanism need to come out as one piece.  Does anyone know how this lower
> mount seperates from the plastic window mount?  I am still waiting for a
> Bentley to show up in the mail, so any help would be much appreciated.
> 
It turns out that your problem may not be due to the window motor itself.
I had a problem on the '87 5kCSQ where the only window that worked com-
pletely was the left passenger's.  As you know there is a second set of 
controls on the driver's door ... this means that the wiring for every 
window switch goes through the boot in the drivers door ... which is also 
the door that is most likely to see the greatest use.  Over years of use 
the insulation breaks apart and the stranded copper wires work harden and 
fracture.  On this car I had to splice somewhere around 10 wires to get 
things back to a working state.  I posted on this a while back, and recom-
mended that everyone with similar cars get some polyethylene spiral pro-
tective wrap [got mine @ Radio Shack for ~$2] and put it over the wire 
bundle to help spread the motion throughout the cable.  This may or may
not be your problem ... I hope it is not!

I would not jump to the conclusion that a motor is bad if the window goes 
down but not up.  The same motor is used for both directions.  While work-
ing on the above problem I stumbled on a quick trick that you may be able 
to use to test further.  I found that some of the connectors that attach 
to the window switch can be taken apart.  To see if you can do this remove 
the window switch from the rear door in question.  Disconnect the 5-pin 
connector and see if it looks like it can be separated into two pieces.  
What you will want to do is to attach the 3-pin portion the way it was 
originally, while rotating the 2-pin connector (that goes to the motor) 
180 degrees.  Now when you activate the down switch the window will try 
to go up, and it will go up with the down switch.  If this test shows that 
the window can go up, then your problem is in either the switch itself 
(fairly common), or the wiring (as described above).  I'd recommend swap-
ping a switch from a working window first ... (after reassembling the 
connector properly of course ... :).

HTH!
Steve
s_buchho@kla.com
San Jose, CA (USA)