slow windows.....

[britlude]

its not necessarily the motor......


a while ago i fitted new window motor units both sides, as you do, and the passenger side remained slow and reluctant to lift....

as it was a nice day, and i had some enthusiasm to investigate, i set to, removing the door card and seal to get to the motor.... disconnected the motor and connected an 11.1v RC car battery to it, to see what it did, expecting gunged up tracks to make it slow.... to my surprise it worked perfectly.... hmmm... voltage supply issue then.... reconnected the motor and powered it via the door switch loom connector... hmmm ok too.....

jumped the loom connector and tried from the now disassembled drivers side...


(quick aside.... the drivers door now disassembled for the 3rd time today! 1st time was to investigate why the drivers window wouldn't lift after the MOT.... switch was ok, relays in the control box were clicking with the switch command... not movement up tho..... removed control unit, re soldered terminals and relays, now works..... (spare control unit sourced as emergency spare later... get the same unit from a prelude or accord, and avoid NSX tax!!!!) refitted and put all back together!

2nd time was to tweak the outside door handle linkage, as it was opening the door right at the end of the handle travel.... hmmm... shame i didnt notice this when i opened the door earlier, not after refitting everything!!!

end of aside!!!)


so, from the driver side loom connection the window still fell and rose well, still not as quick as the drivers side, but better...... so time to attack the switches!

the drivers side feeds into the control box, so the relays in that do the heavy current work, the passenger side switches are pure switches, so the contacts do the heavy current work, and there's 4 contacts it has to go thru to complete the circuit.... soooooooo

fortunately the passenger side switches can be disassembled with a simple cross pin hiding under the rubber shield....

IMG_20240426_130825 by JON SUTH, on Flickr

IMG_20240426_131300 by JON SUTH, on Flickr


this is the drivers door passenger switch..... pretty dodgy normally closed contacts....

basically 2 wires come out of the switch to the passenger switch, both are normally +12v.... if you want to move the window one wire is disconnected from +12 and tied to ground, depending on which way you want the motor to spin... this also means the passenger switch has (normally) two +12v wires coming to it, so it can do the same thing... saves wires!!! as you can see, the normally closed contacts are grotty, giving a resistance and less power available to the passenger switch in the first place.... the passenger switch was similar, so when you try with the drivers switch, it still has one grotty connection there, and still 2 on the passenger side, so again, a slow window as there'e resistance in the circuit..... do it from the passenger side, the power has to come thru the 2 grotty contacts in the drivers switch and still use a grotty one on the passenger side... so either switch you use, it had to go thu 3 grotty contacts before actually completing the motor curcuit!

anyway, cleaned up and with a bit of contact grease, it's back together and working better than ever.... it's still slower than the drivers side, so i suspect the physical connections between the switches and loom are tired, but that is for another time....

IMG_20240426_131426 by JON SUTH, on Flickr

IMG_20240426_131421 by JON SUTH, on Flickr