Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
Here's the latest in my "Lessons Learned" series of diagnostics and fixes, direct from the school of hard knocks (see also this thread on fixing fuel line leaks and this thread on the TST KDP fix).
Power window failures seem to come mainly in two forms: (1) catastrophic... one day it's working, the next it fails completely (and, of course, the window is stuck in the down position with rain coming), or (2) intermittant... works sometimes but not others, or works only if you jiggle the switch). The discussion below addresses two novel (to me, at least) fixes I came up with for both a catastrophic and an intermittant failure that happened to me last week. I haven't seen these particular fixes discussed anywhere else on TDR. The best thing about them is the cost: $0. 00
When my driver-side window failed in the down position last week I ran through the (very well written) diagnostic procedure from the factory service manual (you should, of course, do the same), and at the last step of testing the window motor by applying 12V to it directly, I found that the motor had failed. At this point the factory manual helpfully suggests "replace motor". But the motor is expensive and hard to find except as a part of a complete scissor-lift assembly, which is really expensive. So I decided to dive into the motor to see what was wrong, and found I could easily fix the problem. Here's how it went:
1. Following the instructions in the service manual, I removed the complete scissor lift assembly (AKA 'the regulator') from the door. If you don't have a trim removal tool to pull off the door's inside panel, do yourself a favor and buy one at NAPA ($10).
2. I removed the motor from the scissor lift assembly by removing its three bolts. CAUTION: the motor/scissor assembly is spring-loaded and under tension. It will snap like a bear trap if you just pull the motor off it. Stick a screwdriver through the hole on one end of the large gear to prevent it from snapping when you remove the motor bolts.
3. Next, I opened up the motor. The gearbox has a round metal cover; with a flat-bladed screwdriver slightly pry up one of that cover's two tabs to remove the cover. Remove the locking ring inside (a pair of ring-spreading pliers is mighty handy here), then the disk underneath that, then the nylon gear underneath the disk.
4. Next, I opened up the motor case by removing its two small bolts from their captive nuts. The motor case then pulls apart, exposing the rotor and brushes.
5. Here's where the problem was in my motor: the brushes still had plenty of material left, but the springs that push them up against the rotor are pretty puny and one brush had bound up in its channel, failing to contact the rotor. I removed the spring and pulled that brush out. I first tried lightly greasing the brush channel with dielectric grease, but that didn't work well; it's too thick and sticky. So I cleaned out that grease, then lightly filed the sides of the graphite brush to very slightly reduce its size... it then slid very easily in the channel.
6. The easiest way to reassemble the motor is to slide the rotor out of its magnet housing and insert it back between the brushes while a helper holds the brushes spread apart with two thin blades. Then put the magent housing back on and screw it back down.
7. Applying 12V to the reassembled motor on the bench showed it to work like a charm. Problem solved, and about $250 saved.
8. While reassembling the motor/scissor-lift assembly, I cleaned and lightly lithium-greased the channels that the scissor's nylon rollers run in. This made a big difference in the speed and smoothness of the window motion.
9. After reinstalling the complete assembly in the door, I tested the system one more time before putting the door panel back on. Bummer: the window didn't work. Here's where the intermittant-failure fix comes in: I found that if I used two fingers to press the wiring connector firmly to the back of the switch assembly everything worked great, but without pressing the two together the switch didn't work. Close inspection revealed that the two locking clips on the wiring connector, which grab onto two tabs on the switch module, had developed some play, leaving a little less than a millimeter of play between the tabs on the locking clips and the tabs on the switch module that they're supposed to snap onto... with that much play in the system, the toggle in the switch module can't reliably reach the copper arm in the wiring connector that the toggle is supposed to depress to energize the circuit. If this is your problem, too, it is unnecessary to buy a new switch module (God only knows how much Dodge would soak you for one!). I fixed the problem by cutting a 2 mm length off the tip of each of two flat wooden toothpicks, and using those cutoffs as shims to take up the play between the two mating tabs. Works like a charm. If you happen to have some plastic toothpicks that would work even better; I didn't.
By the way: my driver's side door speaker had stopped working a few months previously, so I decided to fix that, too, while I was inside the door. I removed the speaker from the door and tested it by hooking it up to the speaker wires on my home stereo. The speaker worked fine. Before diving into the wiring harness to find a short, I decided to check the easiest possibility first: I lightly wire-brushed the speaker's two electrical contacts and applied a light coat of dielectric grease. Problem solved: the speaker worked fine when I plugged it back into the circuit.
All in all, a surprisingly pleasant day's repair work. It ain't usually this easy, or this cheap!
Power window failures seem to come mainly in two forms: (1) catastrophic... one day it's working, the next it fails completely (and, of course, the window is stuck in the down position with rain coming), or (2) intermittant... works sometimes but not others, or works only if you jiggle the switch). The discussion below addresses two novel (to me, at least) fixes I came up with for both a catastrophic and an intermittant failure that happened to me last week. I haven't seen these particular fixes discussed anywhere else on TDR. The best thing about them is the cost: $0. 00
When my driver-side window failed in the down position last week I ran through the (very well written) diagnostic procedure from the factory service manual (you should, of course, do the same), and at the last step of testing the window motor by applying 12V to it directly, I found that the motor had failed. At this point the factory manual helpfully suggests "replace motor". But the motor is expensive and hard to find except as a part of a complete scissor-lift assembly, which is really expensive. So I decided to dive into the motor to see what was wrong, and found I could easily fix the problem. Here's how it went:
1. Following the instructions in the service manual, I removed the complete scissor lift assembly (AKA 'the regulator') from the door. If you don't have a trim removal tool to pull off the door's inside panel, do yourself a favor and buy one at NAPA ($10).
2. I removed the motor from the scissor lift assembly by removing its three bolts. CAUTION: the motor/scissor assembly is spring-loaded and under tension. It will snap like a bear trap if you just pull the motor off it. Stick a screwdriver through the hole on one end of the large gear to prevent it from snapping when you remove the motor bolts.
3. Next, I opened up the motor. The gearbox has a round metal cover; with a flat-bladed screwdriver slightly pry up one of that cover's two tabs to remove the cover. Remove the locking ring inside (a pair of ring-spreading pliers is mighty handy here), then the disk underneath that, then the nylon gear underneath the disk.
4. Next, I opened up the motor case by removing its two small bolts from their captive nuts. The motor case then pulls apart, exposing the rotor and brushes.
5. Here's where the problem was in my motor: the brushes still had plenty of material left, but the springs that push them up against the rotor are pretty puny and one brush had bound up in its channel, failing to contact the rotor. I removed the spring and pulled that brush out. I first tried lightly greasing the brush channel with dielectric grease, but that didn't work well; it's too thick and sticky. So I cleaned out that grease, then lightly filed the sides of the graphite brush to very slightly reduce its size... it then slid very easily in the channel.
6. The easiest way to reassemble the motor is to slide the rotor out of its magnet housing and insert it back between the brushes while a helper holds the brushes spread apart with two thin blades. Then put the magent housing back on and screw it back down.
7. Applying 12V to the reassembled motor on the bench showed it to work like a charm. Problem solved, and about $250 saved.
8. While reassembling the motor/scissor-lift assembly, I cleaned and lightly lithium-greased the channels that the scissor's nylon rollers run in. This made a big difference in the speed and smoothness of the window motion.
9. After reinstalling the complete assembly in the door, I tested the system one more time before putting the door panel back on. Bummer: the window didn't work. Here's where the intermittant-failure fix comes in: I found that if I used two fingers to press the wiring connector firmly to the back of the switch assembly everything worked great, but without pressing the two together the switch didn't work. Close inspection revealed that the two locking clips on the wiring connector, which grab onto two tabs on the switch module, had developed some play, leaving a little less than a millimeter of play between the tabs on the locking clips and the tabs on the switch module that they're supposed to snap onto... with that much play in the system, the toggle in the switch module can't reliably reach the copper arm in the wiring connector that the toggle is supposed to depress to energize the circuit. If this is your problem, too, it is unnecessary to buy a new switch module (God only knows how much Dodge would soak you for one!). I fixed the problem by cutting a 2 mm length off the tip of each of two flat wooden toothpicks, and using those cutoffs as shims to take up the play between the two mating tabs. Works like a charm. If you happen to have some plastic toothpicks that would work even better; I didn't.
By the way: my driver's side door speaker had stopped working a few months previously, so I decided to fix that, too, while I was inside the door. I removed the speaker from the door and tested it by hooking it up to the speaker wires on my home stereo. The speaker worked fine. Before diving into the wiring harness to find a short, I decided to check the easiest possibility first: I lightly wire-brushed the speaker's two electrical contacts and applied a light coat of dielectric grease. Problem solved: the speaker worked fine when I plugged it back into the circuit.
All in all, a surprisingly pleasant day's repair work. It ain't usually this easy, or this cheap!
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