POWER SEAT SWITCH VOLTAGE

[ESTAVER]

A bit of experience from today's troubleshooting...

Had no voltage available to driver's side switch. (#10 gauge, Orange w/black stripe, 30 Amp circuit)

Found this wire had completely broken inside the flex bellows that connects the door to body. 10 gauge is a pretty stout wire and I can't imagine what stress would have parted it. From what I could see, all other wires running in that route are fine. Suppose 21 years of flexing when door swings could be the cause.

Here's what was involved in repairing this fault:

To gain access to the point where the wire enters the body, the carpet and door carpet trim strip must be removed. The wire runs from the flex bellows, down to a taped splice, about 10 inches back in a plastic wire way along the door sill. This splice is where you can verify that 12V is available from main body wiring.

This Org/Blk is always hot, so take care not to ground it when the tape is removed, unless you pull the seat circuit breaker.

The sill trim strip has a thin, center wall that runs down the middle of it's whole length. This wall engages three spring clip jaws set into the body sill.

These clips are located 19, 9 and 4 inches from the rear end of trim strip.

You have to be very careful prying this up as to not crack the plastic trim strip. Work a stiff putty knife along the edges, prying up a bit all along the length. Don't try to completely release each one. Work them all out in turn, a bit at a time.

After the clips are free, you can pull the long tab end of the "J" shape from behind the front trim.

The Carpet: To fold it back out of the way, remove the under dash cover beneath the steering column. The wing nuts behind the brake pedal are a point where the carpet must be released. Pry the molded carpet edge off the door sill runner and fold back what carpet you can behind the brake pedal.

Before opening up the kick panel by the park brake, check for voltage at the splice in the sill mentioned above. If voltage is there, you prob. have the same broken wire to the door. If no voltage at splice, I really don't know where the Org/Blk runs from there.

Fixing the wire: The door panel must be removed. The woofer speaker should be removed for hand access. The electrical tape along the door wire bundle that the Org/Blk runs in must be removed if the Org/Blk won't pull back to open air for splicing.

At the interior park brake area kick panel, open up the rear section of plastic

wire way and fold forward. Org/Blk should be visible (if needed, the entire plastic wireway/kick panel can be released from the body by prying out the two, ribbed push pin retainers.

Pull broken end of Org/Blk to open air.

At the door Org/Blk, butt splice a new length of suitable gauge wire. Feed new wire along door bundle and through door/body bellows.

Butt splice new wire to body Org/Blk.

Insure sill area splice is well taped.

Test seat functions.

Replace panel, carpet and trim.

Edited January 11, 2010 by ESTAVER (see edit history)

[Barney Eaton]

It does seem unusual that this wire would break inside the bellows. You would think that there would be equal flexing along the 4-6 inches of where the door opens to equally distrubate the flexing. Any chance that there was a clip or something at one end that caused it to flex more there? Since it is unusual, then it would be harder to fix than something that was designed to fail.

Good write-up and I only remember one other Reatta owner that has had this problem.

[Guest ekvh]

My 88 had the same problem. Right in the middle and in a place that didn't appear to have a lot of flexing. I was able to pull the bellows off the door and find it and repair it (solder) in situ.

[Guest ekvh]

Should have included that the plastic covering showed no wear or cracks, but it was hot on one end and dead on the other. As I began probing the wire to find the short, it snapped in that spot.

[Guest scubalou]

I have a different problem with the same orange/black "Hot" wire. I was in the process of installing new speakers in the driver side door. When I took the door panel off, the orange/ black wire came out of the seat controller. Now i'm not sure where on the bottom of the controller it goes. I have a wiring diagram from Mitchell but it doesn't show the physical position of the wires. Also, this wire seems awfully short compared to some of the other wires that are coming into the switch.

Does anyone know the position of the wire?

(by the way, the speaker install was completed. I installed Pyle 2-way components, replacing the bad 5 1/4 and taking the original tweeter out and surface mounting the new tweeteron the small grill by the door handle. I was able to mount the crossover where the old tweeter came out, only had to drill two small holes next to the original tweeter bottom holes).

[Guest Mc_Reatta]

The FSM on reatta.net will show the pin-out for the connector. Don't know what year you have to look it up.

[Guest scubalou]

I have a 1990 convertible.I see the color-codes for each wire on the diagram, I just hope when i get the switch off it's easy enough to figure out where the orange/black goes. I know this is an "always hot" wire (sparks prooved it out) so I will disconnect (-) battery cable when pulling and replacing. Since the wire seems to be so short, should I splice in a longer one to prevent it from pulling out again?

[Guest Mc_Reatta]

Your wire goes to pin F: (page 8A 202 28 FSM)

[6ball]

ESTAVER: I am having the same problem with my wiring (including one of the power window wires). Your troubleshooting info is being very helpful.

Both power window wires broken (now spliced) Main power wire (orange/black) broken, too. In the process of splicing all of the wires to the seat switch just so I don't have to do this again (at least on this side).

Your info was right on. Thanks Update: 6 out of 8 wires to the switch were broken or hanging by a single wire. This must be the reason they relocated the switch in "90". THANKS AGAIN!!!!

Edited July 12, 2010 by 6ball (see edit history)