Power window repair

[WCraigH]

Hi all! I'd like to share my recent experience repairing the power windows in my 55 Pat for others benefit. Also see my post 243298 for history.

The other day, I decided to repair the PS front power window which I had never disassembled since purchase. This window had the annoying behavior of going part way up and then "stalling" and requiring manual help (pulling on it) to get it beyond about the 2/3 up position. I had guessed the problem was the same as the other windows (when I purchased my Pat) which was that the grease had hardened to the point where there was too much friction in the various pivots and slides for the supposedly original weakened motor to overcome. Ah, but not so.

After disassembly and reassembly with all moving parts greased, the behavior was the same. So out the motor and lift came once again. This time, I took the motor gear drive apart and discovered that the "copper" (bronze?) central gear was worn away at one spot on about 1/2 of its outer edge. So, I disassembled this mechanism (required pounding it apart with a drift/hammer), flipped the gear over to align the non-worn half with the worm-drive and reassembled. Now the power window works like new!

Taking this stuff apart is not very difficult [color:"red"] IF you've done it before or know what you are doing. I'm pretty good at it by now. Beware that the service manual is only marginally helpful. Anyone who wants to tackle this job may want to email me for detailed instructions.

BTW, the PS rear door has similar behavior to its companion front door, just not as bad. I plan on repairing it tomorrow morning. Then, I should have all four window power lifts working like new! <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

[WCraigH]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Excellent tech tip!</div></div>

More to follow in PS rear (see following post).

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> The more frequent problem I've run into in the Packards with <span style="font-style: italic">electric window lifts</span>, however, is windows that go all the way down, but then won't go back up at all (and vice-versa).</div></div>

Yup, I also had this problem (stuck in down position) on my Pat DS front window just recently. I took it apart, tested it on the bench where it worked fine. Finding nothing wrong, I then reassembled. It now works fine. Go figure... <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> BTW, Craig, what did grease did you use for that gear? As I recall the original stuff was a grayish color, but without the typical odor of chassis grease - making me think that graphite was the active ingredient. The only thing I've been able to find with graphite in it is a disc brake lube from CRC., but it seems a bit thick for this purpose </div></div>

I used wheel bearing grease both six years ago and now. Whether it is "right" or not, the grease is/was not the problem.

[WCraigH]

Here's the follow up on PS rear electric window in my 55 Pat.

The window would go up/down in a jerky fashion, sometimes slow sometimes faster (almost normal speed), but never stopping completely. This AM I took it out and bench tested it. It worked almost normal. Then I disassembled the motor gear assembly.

As described in my first post, the problem with the PS front motor was the internal bronze ring gear was worn severely at one spot on one side. The problem with the rear motor was that the drive shaft between the bronze ring gear and the six-tooth lift drive gear was broken! The shaft itself was broken, but there is a sleeve around it so it exerted enough frictional force between the shaft and sleeve to transmit torque intermittently to the lift's fan gear.

My fix was to lightly wire-mig spot weld the tube to the six-tooth drive gear. Then I ground and filed the excess weld material away from the teeth. Then I reassembled and bench tested it. After reassembly, the PS rear electric window works like new! <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

BTW, dis/reassembly of the rear door lift mechanism is more complicated than the front. See plates 20D vs 20G in the parts book for details. The service manual pages are almost useless for the rear door. <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

[WCraigH]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Sounds like we should also hold on to any DOA motors and strip them of any good parts for the "gear train". </div></div>

Yes, I could have made one good motor out of the two (front & rear PS) simply by cannibalizing parts. Fortunately, these motors were repairable without that.

As my friend Paul emphatically says, [color:"red"] NEVER throw away anything Packard! Of course one might also need a lot of storage space. <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

[WCraigH]

For edification purposes, here are a couple of other electrical problems that I fixed on my 55 Pat. One is semi-related to the aforementioned electric window fix and the other is not.

1) Upon reassembly of the passenger rear door, the "courtesy light" on the outside of the [color:"red"]driver rear door was constantly lit. This is the light that illuminates when you open the driver side [color:"red"]front door to illuminate the ground outside the driver side door. This function is independent of whether the head lights or running lights are on or not.

Since I had just had the passenger door apart, the problem had to be there. I traced the problem to the passenger door bulb recepticle. The end of the ground (light blue) wire right before it is attached to the contact had come in contact with the internal tension spring. The spring in turn contacts the case which is grounded when installed. When I had pulled out the bulb to get it out of the way of the window lift mechanism, this apparently moved the light components around enough to cause this inadvertent ground. The solution was to disasemble the bulb recepticle and wrap a little electrical tape around the exposed ends. This could have been a nasty (hard to diagnose) problem had this inadvertant contact occured due to vibration or door movement instead of my previous repair. <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

2) Inspired by my successes fixing the above electrical gremlins and malfunctions, I decided to find out why the backup lights only worked occasionally (mostly not).

The backup light circuit is completed by a rotary switch attached to the steering column just forward of the firewall. The switch position is controlled by a short connecting rod attached (eventually) to the transmission shift lever on the steering column. There are four wires attached to this switch. Two of these wires are attached by screws and complete the starter actuation circuit when the shifter is in "P" or "N" position. This prevents the starter from engaging otherwise. The two other wires are pressed onto studs. These complete the backup light circuit when the shifter is in "R" position.

There were three (3) problems contributing to the intermittent operation of the backup lights. I'm not sure which was the "real" culprit, but I fixed them all anyway and at the same time. The first problem was that the connections were very dirty and somewhat corroded. My 55 Pat is mostly an original (unrestored) car and I had never restored or serviced this part, so there was 50 years of gunk/junk/rust extant. The second problem was that the dark-green wires connected to the studs on the switch were loose and their covering insulators were so "cooked" that they broke into many pieces upon disconnect. The third problem was that the "clocking" of the switch was somewhat off so that when the column shift lever was in "R" position, the switch was barely making the connection for the backup light circuit.

I took the switch off the steering column (after disconnecting the battery). I cleaned all the external connections, replaced the insulator sleeves on the dark-green wires and readjusted the switch "clock" position. Now the backup lights work like new. <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />