tx03v6

I am having a problem with the drivers side power window maybe someone can help, I tried the search but it doesnt' seem to work for me. I have also scanned a number of pages worth of posts to no avail.
This is on an 03 coupe V6 about 60k miles, obviously has power windows and locks.

Apparently ever since the wife has owned the car she has had intermittent problems with the driver side power window,
1. There has never been a problem where it goes down and will not come back up, however when pressing the down button sometimes it will not go down.
2. When you do this there is a clicking noise immediately after hitting the down button.
3. Also when you hit the down button after the clicking sound you can see there is still some sort of draw on the electrical system by the volt meter dropping slightly and you can hear it dragging on the alternator (this would be at idle)
4. The first time I whitnessed this was right after she drove over a speed bump.
5. When it stops the window will not move, you can put pressure on the glass to push it down AND hit the button and nothing happens.
6. Eventually sometimes minutes sometimes days it will start working again like normal, when it does work the window moves quickly and does not seem to drag at all (it's certainly faster than the crappy power windows on my firechicken)


Those were the symptoms, here is what I have done thus far:
I did some reading and read several mentions of hitting the motor itself with a hammer while hitting the button and this can make it start working again, if this happens you have a bad motor and need to replace it.

So I go to Oreilly and purchase a rebuilt (cardone) motor and replace it.

While taking everything apart I notice that the connector has apparently been taken apart at least once or someone broke the little clip that holds it together at the factory, my guess is it has been disconnected at least once, however it is very secure when plugged in, it takes a bit of force to separate the plug.

I replaced the motor which isn't too bad considering some I have dealt with. Immediately everything is working. 2 days ago it quit again an the symptoms are the same as noted above. (about 2 weeks of working fine)

So I have gone to alldata and subscribed so I can get good diagrams (kinda disappointed in that one by the way). I see that there is something called a general electronic module (GEM) which controls the one touch down feature. It cuts the power to the motor when its all the way down by reading the amerage spike. This is what I am hearing clicking.

So this is what I think is happening.
I click the down button
GEM immediately reads a spike in current and thinks the window is down. (This would be the click).
Meanwhile I am still holding the button so there is some sort of draw within the GEM and it's not getting to the motor.
A shock or vibration at just the right time can seem to correct the problem.

I know I have power to the window switch and a signal coming back from the switch to the GEM telling the motor to go down.

At this point the fault is either within the GEM,
either the part which detects the current spike is faulty
or
the breaker it opens upon the spike is faulty and is opening whether the GEM tells it to or not
or
something between the GEM and the motor is grounding out which would simulate the window being in the down position which would tell the GEM to cut the power immediately
or
I just got another bad motor


one other possibility is that something in the regulator mechanism itself is in a bind so that when the motor tries to lower the window it cannot move the regulator this causes the load to spike tricking the GEM into thinking the window is down and it cuts power to the motor.

So my question to the mustang afficiandos is what have been others experience with this sort of problem. I did a quick check and the GEM new is $300+ (dealer only part) I do not know if the breaker which gets thrown is separate or not or if the part that regulates the windows is included in this allmighty GEM or if it is a totally separate part at this point.

My next step is to take it back apart this weekend and bypass the GEM alltogether and wire the motor straight to the switch and see what happens. If this works then I have narrowed the problem down to either wiring between the switch, GEM and motor or something within the GEM itself.
My only worry is that I cannot wire the motor straight to the switch because it might not be rated to handle the power required by the motor. I did see that the entire power window setup is on a 20 amp fuse so I'm not too worried as this isn't a ton of juice and it doesn't go for long.

Advice or info is greatly appreciated.

tx03v6

anyone?[sm=headbang.gif]

tx03v6

so the wife tried working on the window today, come to find out she wasn't even sure how to get the panel off. So I took it apart again and with my new Fluke multimeter went to work and discovered that the power was not getting "reset" by the GEM when I try to lower the window.

When I hit the switch the motor was getting a constant 12v.

With my hand inside the door on the regulator I could feel the regulator move slightly when I hit the down button.

This tells me the motor was trying to lower the window but something is getting in a bind.

I gave the door a firm hit with my hand (just behind where the motor is located)while pressing the down button and suddenly it goes up and down.

I could keep rolling it up and down and then suddenly it would get stuck in the up position again.

As best as I can tell the gear on the motor and the gear on the regulator can get in a bind when the window is up, this will not allow the motor to lower the window.
Either that or something else in the regulator mechanism or one of the stops is causing a bind. My first thought was that the window is basically rolling too far up and this is making the motor gear bind with the last gear of the regulator. I adjusted the stop down a couple of mm. This didn't seem to help so I adjusted again and it seems to help and I could no longer make the window stop working.
While examining all of the parts I noticed that the motor itself pushes out a little when the window comes to a stop in the up position. This has me thinking that another part of the problem may be that when the window is all the way up and the door is closed it could make the binding problem even worse. This is why hitting the door panel makes it start working again, basically it realigns everything and the motor is able to lower the window again.

I'm thinking I might be able to shim the regulator a bit or rig something up to prevent the motor from shifting so much when the window reaches the top.

Has anyone seen or tried anything like this?

Mikes99Mustang

yeah take a look at the junkyard though if u need a gem bc i found one for $35 at the junk yard by my house if i pulled it myself. ive narrowed my very similar problem to the same things, and im actually taking it to a ford electrician and i will let u know what he comes up with, that door panel is such a pain in the *** and ive already taken it off 5 or 6 times, ive given up haha