Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:84FSP said:In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :
Can you imagine how expensive that truck must have been to buy and own in Switzerland?
Oof. You know, I wonder sometimes. That there's why I don't get too too aggervated when I see bodge jobs like the fuel pump. No one out here has anywhere near the resources we do, and the correct parts are, more often than not, not available at all. It really says a lot about the build quality with how much bodge this thing has lived through
As if on cue...
Late last week, my windows quit rolling down. This is a problem as not only is that something I need to do daily, but it is something that I 100% have to do through the border crossing into Ukraine (not to mention that without AC, rolling the windows down is the only cabin cooling I get). Enter the previous owner... AGAIN!
Why do I need a degree in Electrical Engineering every time I have to fix something simple with this dang thing!?!?! It's not hard.
1) Properly installed mechanical splices > crappy solder wrapped in cheap electrical tape.
2) Wires that are the same color get connected BACK to each other when you cut them apart!!!!
Ok, so backing up because first we need to identify the fault: Windows wont roll down. Rear window works no prob. Both switches on drivers side inop, and the singular switch on the passenger side is inop.
Good. So thinking it the most likely candidate, I checked all my fuses. When I found none to be blown, I immediately thought it was my "window lock" switch as I thought it looked like it was sitting higher up than it usually does. I tried depressing it to make it click and stay, but it's broken so it just popped back up. Thinking I'd just jumper the thing out of the circuit, I went behind the door card to get access:
I put the multi-meter through its paces and the switch read good for continuity through it, so I put everything back together electrically and tried it again.
no dice
I took the switch unit apart and found 12v waiting everywhere it needed to be, but any time I through the switch to roll the windows down it'd just drop to zero and nothing would happen. That was a bit of a head scratcher.
Luckily, I have the wire diagrams with me:
Aha! The "door control relay"! Switch gets thrown, juice should go through the relay's coil, voltage would drop. Ok, that's my next most likely candidate. As a bonus, it looks like there are TWO relays side-by-side. One for the rear window, and one for the front windows. This is good as it looks like I can swap them side to side to troubleshoot.
Except it's not. It's just one unit
And for reasons that will remain unknown to the entire rest of the world, the previous owner has been in there soldering random colored wires inline with the truck's wire harness:
In that picture you can JUST make out that the wire I'm holding turns from Blue to brown/yellow...
This is nightmare fuel for me... I already had a busy week and sorting out more bodged wiring wasn't supposed to be on it.
Furthermore, opening up the relay board:
I'm pretty sure those relays and solder blobs were not factory installed...
Fun stuff.