Power window motor + switch repair

over here on the bench I have a power window motor and mechanism removed from the vehicle this is one part it's sold as one part and listed as one part when it fails it gets removed and replaced as one part unfortunately as an assembly it costs way too much money for my liking so in this video I'm going to take it apart and investigate and explore what went wrong with it reality check I requested a quote for this part known to Honda as regulator unit this whole thing that you saw on the bench I'm still choking over it $340 plus tax is what I got quoted for the price of this part the motor and the mechanical linkages everything together regulator unit $340 that's not going to happen and over here take a look at one page from the service manual this is what this is Honda's original service manual and this is what the in the service technician is instructed to do by Honda so in the chapter power windows power window motor test remove it take it apart disconnect it I'll show you how and test it by connecting battery power that's 12 volts and the window either goes up or it goes down now listen to this one if the motor does not run or fails to run smoothly r place it it meaning the whole unit the whole $340 worth of part not an ounce of energy is given to looking at it cleaning it maybe maybe it's dirty or something no just replace the whole thing and let the customer pay 300 whatever whatever amount of money just charge the customer and replace it and this is not unique to power windows motor on a related pay page over here it says passenger window switch test/ replacement you get the same treatment so this is a pattern take it apart remove it disconnect it front or rear whichever you like and then this is listen to what the Honda's instruction is to the technician swap the window switch with another nonn good switch and test if the window switch is faulty or if the part doesn't pass the test replace it so you see the same thing so this is not a unique situation this is a steady pattern with electronic components don't question it don't look at it don't think about it just throw it away not going to happen in this case this unit has been tested and failed electrically and is a combination as an assembly is a combination of electrical and mechanical component the electrical components are here just this this much a connector and a small motor the stator this is the outside of the motor is a stationary magnets and the spinning uh wire coil on the inside everything else past this point is mechanical gears gear teeth and the cable that's visible on the opposite side if I flip it around just a steel braided wire rope like this the wire rope hardly ever fails none of these mechanical components ever fail the gear teeth are probably in Splendid good condition when this motor is powered or 12 volt is supplied to its connector then it just doesn't run and doesn't raise and lower the window so I'm going to look at it what's wrong with it electrically it has two pins one of them is DC positive or or battery power 12 volt the other one is ground and in one combination it lowers the window if the ground and the power are switched around then it's going to raise the window so it can be connected and it is normally connected in both of these configurations so one of them is ground the other one is power and it really doesn't matter which one is which it must run both ways so I'm going to take it apart and see what I can get out of it I have my DC power supply unit here set to 12 volts and over here I can test my setup with this light bulb here the light bulb works and my setup works because when I connect the light bulb is powered so let's repeat the same with this motor so that's going to be one spot there nothing absolutely nothing and I've got good solid electrical contact from both wires that motor is not budging I have another test I can do and this is resistance let's see what's wrong with this motor here so it's not being powered over here with my multimeter I set it to ohms of resistance and if I put it in the background you can see any numbers showing up on it how many ohms of resistance we measure nothing it says overload that's a problem when I touch these two guys it has some resistance unless it's really really it has an open somewhere here is another motor just for comparison this one is out of a washing machine it looks like looks like this there okay so this is a washer or washing machine machine this is a functioning good motor and when I connect the meter you can see maybe this way there what do we have it has some resistance it has some numbers okay 6 two it doesn't matter it has some number showing up for resistance eventually it settles or whatever but it doesn't it shouldn't read o overload so electrical troubleshooting so it may have an open I don't know let's see what happens when we open it up and take a better more detailed look I've removed three of these screws from this part here that looks like housing but the two screws there and the third one there but it's actually this is the stator there are some magnets glued in it and there's a bearing or bushing a rotating Pivot Point here for the rotor this rotor spins in normal operation and I've removed this gasket which was just around it at the base like so don't tear it fairly straightforward it looks clean on the inside it doesn't look like it's got any dust in it so over here we've got let's see looks like we've got some commutator segments inside there so I'm GNA remove for the screws I don't know if that one screws down the uh Little Brush looks like it and that one screws down the other Little Brush so maybe I'm going to remove that white screw there and that no no no not white screw that that screw from the white plastic and a screw from the white plastic and see what happens when I do that that's how it went together this is how it's coming apart that's all I know now this rotor com comes out spinning it this way and this is how it looks like it should be greased here with this worm gear that's obviously driving the rest of the gears inside so don't worry about this part from here forward worry about the electrical parts those commutator segments are important they need to be separated not clogged up with residue in between the com copper plates or commutator plates and it looks like it could use some clean up looks like something is deposited on it from the carbon brushes that are running or that are in place there let me just grab this there this little pointer that I'm going to use this is a carbon brush there on one side feeding the commutators from one side and here is the other one and the worm gear is just the worm gear is way deep down there okay you can see some as as Sparks leave the commutator there is arcing and sparking it's burning the plastic there the white plastic is charred there where the point of this probe is Let's Get Closer okay and these wire plates that you see here and solded connections and looks like there is a little micro electronic components and component and and this seems to be kind of loose but doesn't really come out so I guess I shouldn't have taken out those four screws now in total but these two plates or blades here that form the terminals here or or the connection those blades connect and continue here so I'm going to check for continuity electrical continuity to see if they indeed continue uninterrupted without an open and to do this I set my multimeter to continuity testing and when some electrical continuity exists there is this alible beep so I'm going to hold one proe here on the carbon brush surface and another one on one of the probes on uh inside this connector say the lower one it doesn't matter which one or where you start aha there when I when I hit the wire components here not here but here here okay so there is electrical continuity from this terminal here to this wire brush that's good but there isn't and there shouldn't to the other that's how it should be okay so that's one leg of the circuit now the other one then should be beeping when oh yeah that's good ignore the aircraft and and listen for the be there this is Flawless and the other one shouldn't be powered there there okay so this is the other circuit and it's good all the way to the face of the carbon brush okay so the situation is the carbon brushes might need to be bent inwards a little bit so they have solid electrical contact with the copper plates this may need a little cleaning with a needle or some such thing the the needle for the gaps and uh not this one this is too thick an actual sewing needle as the skinny one and the commutator play Sur surface must be cleaned itself so I'm going to do that and see if it makes a difference see if it see if it helps so that's my next cleanup thing to do I've cleaned the commutator segment surface plates with solvent it didn't make much or any visible difference whatsoever and I ran this pin between the segments it didn't sprad anything whatsoever so everything is clean that was really I blew some compressed air into it this came out that was that was it this that's it I don't even know what this is okay so what I'm suspecting here is contact with the brushes is incomplete so what I'm working on now is that there must be a gap between that copper sorry that carbon brush square and the copper commutator segment okay so that's my only visible observation and logical explanation and because this is not spring loaded this is a bent piece of a bent piece of copper plate here that's maybe yeah that's that's totally reliant on there's no spring okay just just the thickness of the copper to be springy and hoping that it pushes the carbon brush there into the commutator enough for sufficient electrical contact so yeah this one flexes forward and can be bent forward much the same way there that's how you can get to it there okay so let's just bend this copper forward enough for positive contact and yeah I believe we made good progress so I'm going to go ahead and insert this what is it this Worm Drive there it should spin in place and then I'm going to check for continuity again resistance again with the with the stator in place and the uh multimeter reset for ohms there should be proper electrical contact here with ohms showing up on the display and indeed it works I just assembled it and verified it so the cause of the fault or failure is the thinness of this copper plate that's holding the little carbon brush that little rectangular piece of carbon material and it's developing an open it's not physically touching these commutator segments either one of them is enough to develop an open so when I put them together we will have resistance and we will have continuity as it should let's how kind of goes together with a give it a little time and a little wiggling whatever don't force it too much yeah something like that kind of have to play with it a little bit give me some time so I haven't put the stator part on it's still in the background there but this will work I set the instrument there for ohms you can kind of see it in the background that's that's enough detail on that one nice nice what you can see is that there are numbers on the display calibrating and searching for it there 25.4 ohms I don't know what it should read when it's new I don't have the specs on that there 25.4 there you can see it take it away and it's good set for continuity again so it's it's the Bing connection again and this time if I yes I have continuity from pin to pin I am certain that this has been fixed problem is resolved and if I connect it to the vehicle or connect it to 12 Vol DC it will run flawless because it has uh it passed two tests continuity and resistance all right seal goes on like so that this Square part is towards the electrical connector there and then have to put three screws in very straightforward my DC power supply unit is set for 12 volts again let's see how this motor runs or behaves let's connect it one way and see what happens oh yeah that's working now let's close that window and try it this way nice so we can verify that indeed this is working flawlessly so I can take it all out and install it on the vehicle I'll show you in just stages just just to get you a big picture how to installs fairly straightforward and right around this time is the perfect time to ask the question now that we know we have a Flawless motor mounted inside the door and connected why did the motor fail in the first place it's important to ask this question because you have to be wondering did the cause that caused the motor to fail in the first place the dot get fixed uh we know we fixed the motor we we know the motor runs but what caused the motor to fail in the first place because the original cause may not at all have been addressed now I know suddenly the door assembled itself but I'll get back to it how to mount the panel the liner underneath and the screws and the bolts and the torque specifications of everything just go with the story here so as soon as I plugged in the motor I noticed something I lowered the window just like so and the mo and the motor did not stop at this point okay in normal operation like so the window should stay at the height where the electricity is cut or as soon as the electricity is cut it should stay where it is but the motor kept running and the window ran up as if somebody was operating the master switch from the other side okay so I try this thing again I press the button to make the window go down I know it needs a little lubricating and everything I'll talk about it later too but as soon as I released the button the window just ran up again okay and that I found strange and I repeat it again I needed the window down to mount the mechanical assem to the lower mounting bolt here on this side of the ledge on the ledge side okay not on the say hinge and latch okay not on the hinge side of the B of the um mechanical assembly but on the LED side here to Mount that Bol I needed the window to be lowered but as soon as I lowered it it ran right up again just like so without me touching the button okay so he got me wondering where is the motor getting power from or why is it going up so this is what I figured this switch here is a horizontal switch of kind of horizontal surface where particles fall in here into the switch if you can see my installation is not final and finished yet so if dirt falls into this switch assembly that can be shaken out and then that can interfere say large crumbs or something can interfere with the operation of this switch and can make the switch inside this I'm going to take it apart and show you can make the switch inside uh operate so that normally you release the switch current not being supplied to the motor but I noticed that the motor was still weing and making an effort and spinning and current was still supplied to it so this switch on this side it only happened when this switch was connected as soon as this switch here got disconnected it wasn't an issue with this motor uh running in this manner so this switch needed needed to be cleaned and it's fairly straightforward it has four screws here take it apart shake out the crumbs I'll show you so once those four screws are out it's obvious that the switch assembly is one unit with this recess on it and how this goes together is with just snaps together like so at multiple points so maybe I'm going to take it apart carefully with something like this something that's flexible enough once you've done prying these six snap connections really carefully apart this is what's inside remember Honda implies there are no services ible parts inside nonsense what you see is the printed circuit board of course with these components on it this is the power window this is the power door switch these white legs are coming through the circuit board and when the switch is operated this is the action that happens down below inside the switch and this whole thing comes out with that just like so without any effort so if you have any dirt in this switch it's it's extremely unlikely because it's buried quite deep and these surfaces don't lend themselves to getting dirty just just don't because anything falls through vertically okay I don't think you can break them with compressed air or with some gentle cleaning L and uh so the springiness is inside the snap button because these still click or or operate like they normally should so I'm going to take this part apart and and see where dirt can accumulate most so it's probably in in this part that would keep the motor constantly powered despite this switch being released but I think I've got this one coming along well yeah just just barely held in place here done prying and nothing is broken that's good news cuz I really don't want to replace this whole thing for hundreds of dollars again possibly so this is how it looks like when they come apart now it's immediately obvious when I take this off that any dirt accumulating here falls out there and it's not really interfering with the switch take a look at where it pivots and how it pivots the pivot point is somewhere there either either which way so because it's all covered from debris above it's extremely likely that anything would get stuck on there and even if it does it should come out with simple cleaning like this so you don't have to take it apart like this at all do take apart the bottom part because this white arm operates the actual switch this is the actual switch here okay so take some compressed air and whatever is stuck inside you can see the plastic inside is white I know this is for the switch and not for the power door but they are the same essentially the same mechanisms okay they have a pivot point somewhere inside you can see the Pivot Point further down there it's not focused all the way down but you get the idea that but there is not a whole lot to be gained by removing the button the pivot Points can be cleaned from the underside here same story on this one so the people points are barely visible and are hard to get to and I really don't want to butcher the uh the switch just for just for the story itself so compressed air it is here and compressed air will also clean the open part of the switch can see through it that should take care of anything that's possibly stuck inside this is how the switch housing or box looks like after being cleaned with compressed air I want to point out right away that there's a blob of Grease here that got blown out by the compressed air this is grease that gets placed inside the switch the pivot point is lubricated at the factory where the switch is manufactured just the switch not the vehicle just the switch only and this grease is necessary for to lubricate the pivot point but this is this has squeezed out from that Pivot Point at the time of manufacturer it's also possible to clean the switch itself with some compressed air you can see underneath here the legs here how it's soldered onto so there's some clean air there but where it gets clogged up or where the switching happens is of course here this is a sliding resistor okay and does this does get dirty or could accumulate at dirt compressed air it is you can see a shiny copper plate there it's a variable resistor okay and I know this works for the door once that one is done that was that was the original cause why this motor burnt out in the first place because with the crumb in the switch always always supplying current to the motor the motor not getting a rest so with all that overcurrent there is no other protection circuit wise in the system overheated as it overheated the carbon brushes burned off a layer from them as the carbon brushes burn off a layer it leaves a charred mark on the commutator segments and you can see signs of the burnt charred commutator segments that's what caused the discoloration on the commutator segment commutator plates and it looks like it could use some clean enough looks like something is deposited on it from the carbon brushes as well as I speculated that maybe too much arcing and sparking that burned the plastic as as Sparks leave the commutator there is arcing and sparking it's burning the plastic there the white plastic is chored there where the point of this probe is Let's Get Closer okay no no no no it was the switch the crumb or the whatever particle causing current to flow to the motor even when it should be off like so and that burned off a layer from the carbon brush that developed an open and it doesn't matter that farad and Eric replaced this regulator unit it this whole thing for $340 they did not fix the original cause the new one burnt out in about 20 seconds okay and it over it overheats you can feel it that it's warming up it's warming up it's so hot to the touch that that it's that you just let go it's so hot okay it's impossible to notice it until until you actually touch the motor and when you open it up again when it overheats open it again it smells burnt and charred okay so you make sure moral of the lesson you make sure when you fix your motor check the switch and check the operation of the thing if if the window stays down the motor is not being powered that's good if the window stays at wherever whatever height you set it to it's good power is being cut as soon as you release the switch that's how it should work work okay so I can't overemphasize this is really important and it's exactly this lack of finding out the underlying cause is what's so very wrong with this Honda service manual that it's simply sending the technician to discard the motor if it doesn't run or fails to run smoothly without finding out why without prompting the technician to go and check the switch maybe it's sending current to the motor so when they window hits the frame of the door and the motor is still powered maybe it burns out in 20 seconds so instead this is what the technician is told just throw it away the whole $340 worth of motor and and if uh One Burns Out replace it with a second one that burns out too in 20 seconds put in a third one a fourth one and a fifth one and then finally tell the customer it can't be fixed that you you have it masterful engineering from Honda this power window motor happens to be mounted on a 2003 Honda cord four-door unit and this is a passenger side front door this is how it looks like when it comes out although this looks a little worse than it could thanks to let me just show you this sticker thanks to two incompetent retards previously in 2016 uh November 30 farad and Eric are fantastic people who failed to remove the window liner in a a normal or sensible way and also probably failed to fix this the window is held up by these tapes so it's in place the top of the window sorry the bottom of the window is somewhere here at this height and is going to be engaging with this surface that you see here this one here there's another piece of plastic that's inside mounted bottom of the uh window you're looking at the edge of the glass there and that plastic clip on it is what the rest of the rest of this mechanism is going to be catching there with this with this line here so I have just a handful of bolts that this one uses everything is here on the floor these two bolts go back up top here one goes through one hole the other one through this hole not this one that's another bolt hole okay so that one there the this one doesn't have a thread in it in this plastic the threaded part is inside the door door there that's the threaded insert one of them that's what you need to connect the BT too and that hole is there about on the doors uh the rest of it is fairly easy the motor mounts with three bolts their bolt holes are here one two and three and the threaded inserts are inside this motor housing or this plastic casting and the lower part of the mechanism MS two bolts one and the other this one has internal threads as well and the upper part has similarly two more bolts one threaded insert and one and another one there so that's the easy part now so this whole unit needs to be tucked inside the door cavity if you bend bend the cables or whatever do something to figure it out make it fit somehow make it go in with without tearing and ripping anything something like that is close enough this s will be mounted up somewhere and I'm also holding the motor so to take some of the weight off I'm going to kind of rotate it in a way where I can see ah where I can see the uh mounting points for the motor there now I can put three of these bolts in Loosely for the second mounting Point I've lowered the glass so you can see it through here that the lower edge of the glass can be really easily aligned there just like just like so and put the bolt in here and tighten it right here very relatively easy to access it or or or reach it because of the large cut that's in the door but the other one is going to be a little more difficult I'm trying to put my elbow through there through that hole in there so I can uh hold the bolt here with two fingers like so and Titan the B and again you're looking at one page from all data an online service menual resource which was written by Honda edited and proofread by Honda so the figures that you're seeing are not third party Publications this is original Honda material written by Honda engineers and proof R and published by Honda so you see there are two different lengths of BT length uh C and length D that's how this reads But whichever the length is the specific the size is metric 6 by 1.2 mm that's the pit they have different lengths and You either tighten it to 8 Newton M or 0.8 kg Force meter or six pound for pound Force per foot so those are the torque specifications to all of the bolts involved and you'll see the location of the shorter ones are location C I know this is the mirror image of the door that I'm working on but you get the idea that one there is Bolt D so that's the D bolt is the longer one because you only have three of the longer ones so that's spot one spot two and spot three so that's where the low longer bolts go to the lower position there and there on the regulator the shorty bolts go to position C so that's all it says about that that's basically it and then you can read this one lubricate as needed is further described here yeah that's goes without saying so in terms of wrenches it needs a single 10 mm wrench open-end closed end and a 10 mm socket but in terms of geometry it was a little bit of a fiddling so three bolts for the motor down there two for the upper mounting points for the post and two for the lower mounting points there and two for the glass this one for the glass had to be put in before that mounting bolt got in place so I could put my arm around it and uh work with work on it through that single little opening and for the other mounting point on the glass uh the glass had to be lowered here and it had to be tightened from here very very easy access so let's plug the motor back in and verify the operation like so just with this one it's important that at this point the glass be staying put all the way down all the way up very nice working also from the opposite side it does the same thing there it's Flawless it's important that the glass be not rising or not running down on it on its own if that is the case then the motor will be overheating and uh burning through the wires and the carbon brush and whatever I'm checking its temperature it's okay and most importantly the glass stays put that's important because if it doesn't if it kind of runs up or down on its own then you have a dirty switch which is closing lowering or raising the window so not that's not the case in here this seems to be fixed this plastic I'm just going to show you the lay of the land noise barrier as well so uh what what what are the names of those two retards let me see farad and Eric uh didn't cut it in a way that would be easy to place it back so this is going to need some extensive taping and replacement and and proper cocking and everything but just for the fit I'm going to show you how it kind of looks like kind of looks like there that's what it kind of looks like when it's kind of done okay I'll show you how to connect the door handles wire had to put the uh bulb into the socket and then a few screws go in and that's it for the door panel I'll show you very straightforward the glue residue and the previous sealant is meticulously being removed using lots of uh leer thinner and some some scraping this is a plain blade but this is lapped to Perfection on a 600 grit Stone finally so but that's a long story I'm being I'm removing moving the last of farad and Eric's genius work or there 45 53 thank you very much so I'm going to put this back with just clear tape for now because because I don't have another liner okay but eventually and also I'm testing and keeping this motor under observation see if it overheats or whatever however it behaves so I'm going to put it back temporarily with this clear tape but eventually so I'm going to need a new liner and uh I'm going to put some proper acoustic sealant even weather stripping double-sided because that's whatever is good for heat also good for noise so something that keeps this on and maybe has a less strong uh glue on it so it it it comes off a lot easier than it is so it's looking decent so with some kind of decent taping you can see the mounting points and the hookup points that's an elbow rest this way so that's a mounting point two more M mounting points here where the uh latch is for opening the door and routing the wire is fairly straightforward just one piece so first thing light this little light goes into the socket in the corner just like so it goes in One Direction somehow and then it's a half of a quarter of a turn in other words it's an eighth of a turn but if you don't like fractions don't worry about it then this connector don't worry about it just leave it alone this is what you need to connect next okay so that's the cable I'm going to try to connect it using only one hand to the inside components of the latch you can see it kind of has to catch this and then the anchor end needs to be in there and then they snap together like so and one more point where it has to connect is there just like so that's all I see actually I don't see anything because the camera is in the way from here on you have a number of snap connectors like this all around the perimeter of the door you can see one down in the corner one here one here and before those go in this thing needs to go over okay let's try the two-handed version so this has to go through like so that's nice it needed a little adjustment from the inside and line up this one with the edge of the window everywhere just like so for height and let's take a look at these ones yeah the plastic snap connector lines up with the hole in front of it there and there that's good so let's start snapping it together that's also how it comes apart the light is good it's functional at this point the cable should be inside that's good the two screw inserts should show up there that's good and just tap it together like so that's basically done and how it comes apart is with this dry Walling whatever tool just you know pop it one at a time next thing to pop in place is this little triangular piece you can see two rectangular holes there for it not correspond to this this re this piece and another one that's broken I did not break it off but like so let's see if I can do this with one hand only I kind of need to look at it to line it up yeah that's close enough that's in place the screws so two screws there one screw there I've got the screws in place last thing to connect is the switch assembly just like so and I don't want to snap it in place but this has a series of hooks along it that just snap in place I'm just going to kind of put it in there there's also two more trim panels one small rectangular piece that just sits on top of that and another one that fits in this recess most importantly oh yeah window still works from this side I expect it works from the other side but I need to do is clean the uh glue residue from the clear tape both sides of the glass and this is basically done on the ground here so this is all the tools I used the clear tape with the scissors lequer thinner and servet and the plane Blade Two 10 mm uh one socket one wrench and a screwdriver Phillips number two and then this tool just to pop some of these snap connector is just like so very straightforward yes so and oh yes very important and the tool that fixed that fixed it all is this safety pin that fixed the motor inside so the carbon brushes now are in contact with the commutator uh segments good to go save yourself a couple hundred dollar now fitting the liner and everything assembly uh half an hour cleaning up the tape from farad and Eric that's the last we've seen those two retards that's that could take hours I just took an hour when cleaning up was exposed and the bottom of it still needs to be cleaned up but when I have the fresh liner I'm going to do it at that point and peel it all away and install it properly so other than that I just have a little bit of clean up to do here some of this glue is uh on the floor there I didn't want to contaminate this pavement here with it so basically that's what it takes 15 minutes for removal 10 seconds for fixing it with the safety pin 15 minutes for motor motor fitting 15 minutes for door liner fitting and whatever amount of time for cleaning up the glue whatever you find under your door for

Channel: theoverengineer

Views: 320,624

Keywords: power, door, window, motor, electrical, fault, repair, fix, solution, trick, tips, service, Honda, manual, alldata, tightening, torque, specifications, work, dirt, cause, error, regulator, unit, cost, mechanical, car, truck, ford, mazda, gmc, buick, bmw, switch, resistor, variable, potentiometer, construction, principle, chevy, chevrolet, dodge, chrysler, fiat, plymouth, holden, suzuki, hyundai, mitsubishi, subaru, kia, lada, skoda, vw, volkswagen, audi, mercedes, doesn`t, run, manufacturer, mechanism, current, wire, wiring, nissan, elecrtonic, breakdown

Id: fgMaQQsaSvI

Length: 46min 57sec (2817 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 30 2017