new tailgate window question

[Fish]

Ok, I think I read through almost all of the incredible wealth of knowledge trying to fix a tailgater window that will not go up.

That got me as far as driver window switch seems to be in good working order,got the rear window out, and checked the tailgate safety switch.

Turns out, the previous owner must have tried to bypass the safety switch. Additionally, I found a black wire coming out of the bottom of the motor that was not connected to anything. I assumed that the black wire was a ground, and its lack of connection may have caused the problem.

When I grounded the black wire(in picture), the jumper (teal wire in the picture) got real hot and started to smoke.

Questions:

1)Is the black wire that cmes out of the bottom of the window motor a ground?

2) any thoughts on the jump? The motor prevoiusly worked.

Onemore thing that may be of note is that there is a metal square in the fuse box, near the top, in the middle that is really hot; even without the key being in the ignition. I don't know if this is realted, but seems like a problem just the same.

Thanks in advance for any insight

http://www.fullsizejeeps.com/jeeps/files/Misc-Pictures/fish02.JPG

[ffej]

Time to get a meter!! :D It will be worth the money..you will use it lots on these beasts..then you can rewire it correctly. tongue.gif

[ April 12, 2003, 10:12 AM: Message edited by: ffej ]

[Fish]

ffej,
do you know if the black wire coming out of the motor (in picture above) is the ground?

Thanks,
fish

[ April 12, 2003, 10:03 PM: Message edited by: Fish ]

[Bob Barry]

There should be no black wire coming out of that motor; the black wire in that picture runs about where the factory defroster line would run. Where does it go into the motor?

The motor grounds through one of those wires in the two-prong connector coming off the top of the motor, and back through the dash-switch.

What were the symptoms of your failing window motor? Definitely get a meter; a bad tailgate switch can feed (+) voltage to the motor when it shouldn't. It's also possible your motor is shorting out.

But definitely start poking around with a meter.

[will e]

speaking of back windows. my wires are starting to have the installation rubbed off in the spot between the bottom of the tailgate and the hole above the bumper on the body.

Moving the tailgate slowly I see that my wires do not move, they actually seem to get pinched a little. I was wondering: Is the black plastic cover that all of the wires sit in supposed to move up/down through the hole in the body?

Any ideas on an improved solution to this engineering marvel? I will post some pictures too.

[Fish]

Bob,
the black wire runs directly into the bottom of the window motor. There are no other wires going into the motor there. There are a two other wires, a brown and a tan one, but I thought they were for up and down (one for each)

The symptoms were: went down and never came back up. No hesitation, no unusual sounds pr smells. very similar to a breaker going out.

I could not find a wiring diagram that included the ground for the motor, and I am not an expert by any means. Since I read about 100 posts regadrding the tailgate, I thought someone might have stumbled across this.

Then again, since there were already jumpers on it from the previous owner, who knows what kinda temp rigs may be instore for me.

[ April 14, 2003, 05:30 AM: Message edited by: Fish ]

[Blackjack]

Originally posted by will e:
speaking of back windows. my wires are starting to have the installation rubbed off in the spot between the bottom of the tailgate and the hole above the bumper on the body.

Moving the tailgate slowly I see that my wires do not move, they actually seem to get pinched a little. I was wondering: Is the black plastic cover that all of the wires sit in supposed to move up/down through the hole in the body?

Any ideas on an improved solution to this engineering marvel? I will post some pictures too.Will e I got the same problem with mine. I've been searching for a fix for this too. It's only a matter of time before the wires are junk. The hole in the gate that the wires go through is small. I was thinking of clearancing that hole a bit so the bundle slides back and forth and then wrap the crap out of the wires.
Sorry to steal your post Fish! redface.gif

[wagdriver]

May be I can help. The black wire is definetely the window defrost. You are correct in your assumption the the window safety switch has been bypassed. If you will looks closely I don't think you will find the black wire is from the motor. There should be two wires comeing from the motor itself one brown and one tan(an unfortunate choice of colors)the two brown leads with the green jumper go to the safety switch. The brown wire on the motor is down and the tan wire is up. The safety switch is a simple open close switch. I got this information from the Haynes Jeep Wagoneer and Pick-Up 50029. The vio/red wire going to the key switch is the 12v hot wire. The motor is grounded by the front tailgate window switch. When you activate the key switch you change the direction of current flow in the motor for up and down. ;)

[Fish]

No problem GFD

thanks for the clarification on th wiring wagdriver, and you are correct, the black does go somewhere else.

Right now it is all the way down and does not respond to either switch. I read in the archives that the voltage switches from positive to negative depending on the direction. Does this mean that I connect a positive to one and a ground th the other to test the motor, and then just switch to make it go the other way? Thanks in advance, I am definately NOT a GURU, and I am sure this question is really stupid.

[ April 25, 2003, 06:02 AM: Message edited by: Fish ]

[andy d]

yes

[Fish]

OK, I tried the the hot and ground wires mentioned above (coming from the RW motor)- one to the tan, the other to the brown, and vice versa. All I got was sparks, no movement or sound from the window motor.

Any ideas what I should try next (besides taking it to someone who knows what they are doing)?

Thanks,
Fish

[Zacko]

Go out and get the Haynes manual for Wagoneer. I just went through this with mine and if I didn't have the wiring diagram in the back of the manual I would have been totally lost. The window circuit is not as simple as you think. There are no actual ground circuits as you normally think. Both wires coming out of the motor will be hot at one time or another, depending on if the window is going up or down.
I ended up having a dead door switch that was causing the problem.

[Fish]

OK, got the mainual and attached the diagram below for the motor.

It shows the bronw and tan each being hot, with the ground being forward in the front window switch.

My question, is how do I jump the motor to see if it works? I tried just hot to the tan or the brown. Nothing. Then tried hot to one and ground to the other- nothing (but sparks). I know this is a stupid question, but I cannot figure out why nothing is happening. THanks for any help.

http://www.fullsizejeeps.com/jeeps/files/Misc-Pictures/fish07.jpg

[Zacko]

If you put hot to one wire and ground to the other directly on the motor it should work. Make sure you aren't going through the switch. Unplug the motor from the harness and apply the voltage directly to the wires on the pigtail. If it just sparks or doesn't move you have a dead motor. I tested mine directly from some jumper cables on the battery, that way there was no question.
On the circuit above the switch acts as a ground circuit and a hot citcuit depending on which way you push the switch. Both switches have diodes to supply a ground circuit regardless of where you run it from, just like a 3 way switch in you house.

[Zacko]

Oh yeah, don't trust the colors called out in the manual. It must be like other AMC items, they just used what they had on the shelf. The wires going to my motor were both dark brown without a stripe or anything on either of them. I had to chase each one out to find out which was which.

[Fish]

thanks Zacko for all the help. I used jumpers to the harness in the tailgate that leads directly to the motor and nothing but sparks.

Since it appears that the motor might be gone, I have one other problem- two of the screws that hold the assembly into the taligate are covered by the gears. Is there anyway to get the gears to move without using the motor so I can remove it?

[Zacko]

There are three bolts that hold the motor in, all of them point toward the front, if I remember right two of them had to come out a flat at a time with an open end wrench, but there was room under the gears. Leave the easy one for last, it will hold the motor in place. There is a flange on the motor that locates it and is a pretty snug fit. Good Luck.

[Fish]

Thanks Zacko, you are da man.

[wagdriver]

Zack and Fish have got you on the right track! Have fun! ;)