All hail, Wiring King
I tore off the drivers door panel, the sill trim and lifted the carpet from the Roadmaster today in order to better hunt for my window lock wiring problem. At long last I found it. It looks like there should be some manner of bushing or wire guard where the wiring travels through the side panel of the car to enter into the door panel itself. With the door panel removed, I started to pull on the +12VDC wire that feeds the window lock switch. My intention was to wiggle the wire slightly in order to identify which wire it was where it entered the passenger compartment. I was astonished to have the entire wire pull free, the end cut cleanly as if by a pair of cutters. it seems that whatever should be protecting the wires where they rest against the side panel sheet metal isn’t doing its job. I soldered small splice into the circuit and fed the wire back through the door frame and into the car again where I soldered that end back together as well. Voila! My windows work again and the window lock is fully functional.
It seems that there are several other wires damaged in the door panel loom as well. In bundling everything back together, I’ve damaged the drivers door wiring so that it’s shorting to the interior lighting system. As well, half of the drivers power seat controls are inoperative as well. That, at least can be resolved another day. With the windows functional, I can now pass my safety test and hopefully my emissions test. With both of those done I can go to court to protest that $360 fine that I got for driving the Roadie without a passed emissions test in my hand.
The rear window on the drivers side has been broken for a while it seems. The window goes down but crooked. It seems that GM has designed the window regulator so that the window scissors travel inside a channel with a small oval shaped piece of plastic to act as a guide. Over time the plastic piece dries out, splits and the window falls off of its guide. GM has a replacement part that is a circular piece of plastic and it rolls in the channel instead of sliding. The official GM replacement for this problem is probably a new regulator for several hundred dollars. For $5.00, GM Part# 966-6748 can be snapped onto the end of the scissor traveller quite easily and this problem resolved. I received my roller pieces, opened up the door panel and now my window travels the way that it should. I’m a pretty happy guy!
