So my window works fine now?

[1990LTD]

Okay, I got the car a week or two ago (90 CV 5.0) and the front passenger side window doesn't work. Big deal, probably needs a new motor, I'll get it when I have the $. I take it to my mechanic and he tells me the motor is fine but the problem lies in the wiring (he said he had the window moving bit by bit) but he didn't want to take everything apart on a Sunday - stores close here, including the auto parts places. We'd be S.O.L if anything major happened when it was apart.

Anyway, we decide I'll bring it back to him this week at some point when we're not busy. Cool. I take the car home, and the window will go down about a centimetre, and goes back up but not strong enough to go up all the way. Damn!

I'm in the car a few hours later, and mysteriously, the window starts working fine..until I put it down all the way and it won't budge. Just my fucking luck.


I had to leave the damned thing sit outside my girlfriends house with the window wide open (nothing of value, people don't steal from cars 'round here anyway). I was trying to figure out how the hell I'd get it back up before I went home for the evening as we're getting rain and plenty of it..then the window lurches back to life, stronger than ever! It's just as fast as the others now and has been working flawlessly (well, it "skips" a little on the way down, but they all do) for hours. I have absolutely no idea what happened, how it happened, or why it happened, but I'm glad it did.

[79lincolnlover]

Ghost in the machine...

[86VickyLX]

DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT PUT YOUR WINDOWS DOWN ALL THE WAY!!!!! Except the rear ones that only go down half way. The brushes on your motor sound like they are worn out, which is why it works once in a while, did you hit that door at all, or slam it or even close it? That can free up the motor. You may need to replace the bushings inside the motor it sounds like, they're not supposed to 'skip'. Either that, or your regulators are bad, which is a little more unlikely.

[1990LTD]

DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT PUT YOUR WINDOWS DOWN ALL THE WAY!!!!! Except the rear ones that only go down half way. You need to replace the bushings inside the motor it sounds like. Either that, or your regulators are bad, which is a little more unlikely.

You think so? Thanks.

[86VickyLX]

Yeah I do think so. Because I've had to do it with every damn window motor on my car mang. In fact one motor stopped working completely and I had to replace it. I think the passenger side one is going to in my car, I can't chance putting that window down all the way. So I warn you now, unless you like the smell of a musty car, don't put them down all the way.

[Lincolnmania]

yea brushes are worn out or dirty......try slamming the door

[Jason_GMQ91]

Ghost in the machine...

The Police!!!

[1990LTD]

Okay, the rear driver side window has never worked. Did for about ten minutes today, then stopped, and works fine now. Same with the passenger side front. The passenger front would sound like it was clicking earlier today before it started working.


They all work fine now...who knows what tomorrow will bring?!

At least I know the motors are fine!

[gadget73]

If it sticks down, have someone hold the button while you slam the door. More often than not, its enough to jar the brushes into working enough to get the window to go up. I've pulled those motors apart and polished the commutator before. It works sometimes, but if the brushes are shot, its not gonna help much. Adding washers under the spring to get more brush tension will nurse some more life out of it, provided there is a fair amount of brush material there and its just a case of the spring being tired.

[1990LTD]

So the general consensus is that the brushes are bad?



I know little about this stuff but I am eager to learn, what are the brushes? Where do you think I should go from here?

[85crownHPP]

Don't get excited - such behavior is signs of impending failure! you should replace them, unless you want to try to freshen up the innards and be ready to go back into the door panels sometime in the possibly near future..

[1990LTD]

Don't get excited - such behavior is signs of impending failure!

I didn't mean to imply that I was going to take it apart and start poking at things or anything along those lines. I meant that I want to learn more about my cars inner workings.

Do you mean I should replace the entire window motor? My mechanic thinks it's not the motor(s) but in the wiring. Since two of the windows work perfectly and the other two are intermittent, I thought that made sense. I asked here to get a second opinion but honestly didn't think I'd get a conflicting one. I don't know what to do from here.

[85crownHPP]

nothing! i was referring to the behavior of your window motors, this excitement :

They all work fine now...who knows what tomorrow will bring?!

At least I know the motors are fine!

You must have posted while I was typing

[1990LTD]

Ah. Gotcha. Call center training and lack of sleep makes me mis-read things

[Lincolnmania]

sometimes little chunks of what used to be the nylon window motor gear rollers gets stuck in the gear and the motor wont turn ........i usually take the motors out and tke em apart then test them on the bench........the cheap ebay window motors from china are junk, i ordered some once, one had internal wiring problems, and the other one was noisy.....we ended up using them for parts.......i recently installed a new dorman window motor from autozone.......was around 50 bucks, small motor design, but so far so good on a 87 townie