Passenger Side Power Window Switch Repair
05-10-10, 12:32 AM
#1
Recovering Miataholic
Thread Starter
Passenger Side Power Window Switch Repair
Warning: This thread is boring, and of little interest to the general forum readership. I'm only writing this to release frustration.
Our '94 FD's passenger-side power window quit working (intermittently). Neither driver's side nor passenger side switches worked. It takes two 1994 factory workshop manuals to deal with this; pages S-56 and S-57 of the "1994 Workshop Manual," and pages K1-5 and K1-10, 11, and 13 of the "1994 Body Electrical and Troubleshooting Manual." The first manual covers door panel and switch removal, the second is used for troubleshooting switches and wiring.
I noted some discrepancies between the manual descriptions and the real world.
Page S-56 (driver's side stuff) neglected to mention removing the "garnish" plastic trim at the front and rear corners of the window. Because of that, if the manual is followed, step 5 ("Lift the door trim up to remove it") can't happen. The "inner garnish" is in another section, on page S-11. That shows only the rear garnish, which just pulls off (but not easily). One has to deduce that the front garnish is removed the same way, since it is not addressed anywhere that I could find.
So OK, the garnish is off, instructions are completed down to step 5, and lifting the panel up to remove it does indeed remove it, along with a lot of deteriorated speaker "weatherstrip," unknown pieces of rubber, and a screw screwed into a piece of broken plastic.
Pulling out the main power window switch succeeds in breaking of one of the two plastic tabs that holds the whole assembly in place, so I had to break out the "2-Ton Epoxy" and repair it. Cure time was 24 hours to full strength, so I used the time to check out the main switch's passenger side switch and found it OK.
Once I carefully replaced the main switch assembly and pressed the door panel back into place, the three main installation screws didn't line up, but eventually lots of pushing/pulling did the job.
So the driver's door was my first 24-hour portion of the job. On to the passenger side. According to page S-57 of the manual, I shouldn't need to remove the door panel--- just (step 1) remove the recess cover and the installation screw, (step 2) "Remove the inner handle," and (step 3) "Disconnect the harness connector." Unfortunately, step 2 resulted in breaking one of the plastic tabs holding the inner handle cover (NOT the inner handle... it doesn't come off). And step 3 is kind of impossible until after the switch is removed from the door panel, and the only way to do that is to pry it loose with a very small flat screwdriver. So I did that; nothing broke this time. Also the switch when installed covers a very important screw that holds the middle part of the door panel on; the screw is shown in the illustration, but no clue as to where it is... it's floating in the air in the picture.
At this point I decided that since removal of the driver's side door panel exposed problems that needed fixing, likely the same would be true of the passenger side panel, so I took that off (this time I knew about removing the garnish first). Unfortunately, lifting up the panel broke off one of the two locating pins at the top of the panel, and not only the pin, but the L-shaped metal bracket that held the pin onto the panel. So I first had to epoxy the bracket back onto the panel, and then after that cured I had to epoxy the pin back to the L-bracket. Once again, while epoxy was curing, I looked at the electrical stuff. The window switch looked intermittent to my meter; in the "off" position, there are two contacts that should show continuity. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't, so I took the switch apart and cleaned all the contact points with Amway Chrome & Glass Cleaner, which is basically an abrasive paste when damp. After everything was clean, I lubed the moving parts with dielectric silicone grease and reassembled the switch.
Now I was on page K1-13 of the "Body Electrical Manual" again, this time looking at the "Power Window Subswitch" table. Everything looked good to my meter except that in the "Down" position, terminal F was not showing continuity to terminal G as it should, per the table. I spent some time trying to find a broken wire, loose terminal, etc. but couldn't find any obvious fault. So I turned back to page K1-5, which is the Power Window wiring diagram. According to the wiring diagram, terminal F can never connect to terminal G, since those are both fixed contacts. The table on page K1-13 was (and is) in error! In the "Down" position, terminals G and H should be connected, NOT F and G. So the switch, tested per my redlined table, checked out just fine. No intermittents, everything was solid.
So now it's Sunday at 10:30 pm, and I still have to put back the switch assembly and the passenger door panel tomorrow, after working all day Saturday and today on this job. Have to pick up wife at the airport at 3 pm, so need to be done by about 1:30 pm tomorrow.
Told you it was boring!
Our '94 FD's passenger-side power window quit working (intermittently). Neither driver's side nor passenger side switches worked. It takes two 1994 factory workshop manuals to deal with this; pages S-56 and S-57 of the "1994 Workshop Manual," and pages K1-5 and K1-10, 11, and 13 of the "1994 Body Electrical and Troubleshooting Manual." The first manual covers door panel and switch removal, the second is used for troubleshooting switches and wiring.
I noted some discrepancies between the manual descriptions and the real world.
Page S-56 (driver's side stuff) neglected to mention removing the "garnish" plastic trim at the front and rear corners of the window. Because of that, if the manual is followed, step 5 ("Lift the door trim up to remove it") can't happen. The "inner garnish" is in another section, on page S-11. That shows only the rear garnish, which just pulls off (but not easily). One has to deduce that the front garnish is removed the same way, since it is not addressed anywhere that I could find.
So OK, the garnish is off, instructions are completed down to step 5, and lifting the panel up to remove it does indeed remove it, along with a lot of deteriorated speaker "weatherstrip," unknown pieces of rubber, and a screw screwed into a piece of broken plastic.
Pulling out the main power window switch succeeds in breaking of one of the two plastic tabs that holds the whole assembly in place, so I had to break out the "2-Ton Epoxy" and repair it. Cure time was 24 hours to full strength, so I used the time to check out the main switch's passenger side switch and found it OK.
Once I carefully replaced the main switch assembly and pressed the door panel back into place, the three main installation screws didn't line up, but eventually lots of pushing/pulling did the job.
So the driver's door was my first 24-hour portion of the job. On to the passenger side. According to page S-57 of the manual, I shouldn't need to remove the door panel--- just (step 1) remove the recess cover and the installation screw, (step 2) "Remove the inner handle," and (step 3) "Disconnect the harness connector." Unfortunately, step 2 resulted in breaking one of the plastic tabs holding the inner handle cover (NOT the inner handle... it doesn't come off). And step 3 is kind of impossible until after the switch is removed from the door panel, and the only way to do that is to pry it loose with a very small flat screwdriver. So I did that; nothing broke this time. Also the switch when installed covers a very important screw that holds the middle part of the door panel on; the screw is shown in the illustration, but no clue as to where it is... it's floating in the air in the picture.
At this point I decided that since removal of the driver's side door panel exposed problems that needed fixing, likely the same would be true of the passenger side panel, so I took that off (this time I knew about removing the garnish first). Unfortunately, lifting up the panel broke off one of the two locating pins at the top of the panel, and not only the pin, but the L-shaped metal bracket that held the pin onto the panel. So I first had to epoxy the bracket back onto the panel, and then after that cured I had to epoxy the pin back to the L-bracket. Once again, while epoxy was curing, I looked at the electrical stuff. The window switch looked intermittent to my meter; in the "off" position, there are two contacts that should show continuity. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't, so I took the switch apart and cleaned all the contact points with Amway Chrome & Glass Cleaner, which is basically an abrasive paste when damp. After everything was clean, I lubed the moving parts with dielectric silicone grease and reassembled the switch.
Now I was on page K1-13 of the "Body Electrical Manual" again, this time looking at the "Power Window Subswitch" table. Everything looked good to my meter except that in the "Down" position, terminal F was not showing continuity to terminal G as it should, per the table. I spent some time trying to find a broken wire, loose terminal, etc. but couldn't find any obvious fault. So I turned back to page K1-5, which is the Power Window wiring diagram. According to the wiring diagram, terminal F can never connect to terminal G, since those are both fixed contacts. The table on page K1-13 was (and is) in error! In the "Down" position, terminals G and H should be connected, NOT F and G. So the switch, tested per my redlined table, checked out just fine. No intermittents, everything was solid.
So now it's Sunday at 10:30 pm, and I still have to put back the switch assembly and the passenger door panel tomorrow, after working all day Saturday and today on this job. Have to pick up wife at the airport at 3 pm, so need to be done by about 1:30 pm tomorrow.
Told you it was boring!
05-10-10, 01:11 PM
#3
Recovering Miataholic
Thread Starter
This thread is useless with out pictures! :P
Oh, yeah, everything works now, except the driver's side window switch now sometimes microwelds in the "Down" position if the battery is connected (otherwise not).
