OK, I have told several people on here how to do this but thought it would be better if I did an actual write up with pics. This mod bypasses the heat sensitive resistance strip in the motor that stops the motor before it cuts off a hand, so if you do this I am not responsible for any broken or severed limbs. If you find yourself rolling up the window and notice a sharp pain in your arm or hear screaming from a passenger please release the button.

I have done this to motors that were completely non-responsive and also to motors that would only go up half an inch at a time, it works great and so far has had no ill effect. The one touch down still works as well, I guess it gets its signal to stop from somewhere else. If you do this and it breaks something in your car I am not responsible for that either.

Step one:
Remove door panel and plastic sheet. This has been covered extensively on here so I won't go into it.

Step 2:
I have always done this with the window up so there is room in the door to work. Get the window up and find some way to hold it in that position. I use some quick clamps at the base of the glass front and back to hold it up.

Step 3:
Drill holes to access the rivets that need to be drilled out and then drill them. This has been covered as well but here is a pic of where to drill the holes just in case you can't find it or don't want to look.





Step 4:
Remove window motor and unplug wire harness. This is what you should have:



Step 5:
Put it in your vice and remove the plastic top. There are metal tabs holding the plastic in place that need to be bent out. These 3 pics show what I'm talking about.







Pry it up gently if it won't come out with just your hand.



Make sure you don't lose the brushes that will likely fall out, they look like little metal blocks and will need to go back in later. The springs behind them may fall out too, keep those as well.



Step 6:
Solder a good sized wire across the resistor strip. I don't have a good pic of the strip without the wire soldered on it but this is what you are aiming for. I used 8ga wire and put solder on the strip and tinned the ends of the wire first.



Step 7, reassembly:
Put the springs and brushes back in their slides. Get a paper clip or similar thin firm wire and bend it so it will push against the brushes and hold them in place so you can get the shaft back in between them. This needs to be thin because when you put the plastic back on the motor you will need to have space to line up the shaft between the brushes and still be able to get the paper clip out. You'll see what I mean when you get there. Put the plastic back on the motor using a small screwdriver, a pick, the force, whatever makes the shaft line up for you.







Pull the paper clip out when the shaft is aligned and the brushes will contact it.



Bend the tabs back in place, plug it into the harness and test operation.

If it works then reinstall it in the door. I do this with pop rivets. I use 3/16" rivets and a pop rivet gun.



You will need to drill out the holes in the motor with a 3/16" bit before these will fit. I use a deep socket to force them into the holes and then pull them in with the gun.



Here I have put all 3 in but only pulled the top one in.



That's it, test the window for functionality and enjoy not having to buy new motors or replace failed warrantied motors every year.

 

i am interested in this but really don't understand what this does. does it make the windows go faster? i mean if a motor breaks, then i have no idea how this will resurrect it. when you say something about ripping someone's hand off, again i just don't understand...the stock motor doesn't stop if your hand goes in front of it, so i'm not sure what thread this poses if you do the mod. can you explain further? maybe a video of the window in motion after you are finished?

also i will just add, the oreilly's motor is like $50 and it's a lifetime warranty and much faster than stock. if you purchase one, maybe some will think it's dishonest, but you can take any motor from then on out and they will replace it. i purchased one about 5 years ago and have since replaced at least 5, all for still just $50.

 

This is how to fix a window motor that is not working at all or only moves slightly and then overheats and stops. It will have no impact on the speed of the windows, if yours work fine then this will do you no good. The manufacturer put a safety in place that kills power to the motor if it senses resistance and that is done by the heat sensitive circuit breaker bypassed by this mod. The resistance strip that this bypasses is supposed to see a spike in current draw from the motor (like if something was in the way) and kill the current, but over time they wear out and break current with very little draw.

Sorry for not explaining better in the first post.

 

Thanks for the info and nice writeup, I'm going to try this over the weekend since my passenger side goes slow and stops if I use it too much.
I'll prolly do both sides and clean the tracks then re-lube everything etc, do you think white lithium grease would be a good choice for that? I ask since it looks like you are pretty familiar with the workings in the door.
Thanks again

 

Great writeup! Now tell us how to fix them from "dropping" without buying a whole new door.

 

While you're in there, might want to clean up the commutator bars. They tend to get kinda gunked up from arcing and such.

 

What a stud. Your awesome, I H. A. T. E. my !@#$%%@ windows. Looks like my next weekend project. Thanks!!

 

did this years ago and deff helped my problem, windows still ***** slow but they rolled up and down no problem

 

This is a great write up on how to fix a failed or failing motor!

But the real fix in preventing the problem in the first place, is to reroute a dedicated power wire from the battery to the pass side window motor/hanress.

Autotrix used to make a "kit" of plug and play wiring harness, replays and wires to do the trick. But it can be done yourself cheaper.

But either way, once the proper power is being used the windows (with motors in working order) will run at normal speed and NOT burn themselves out in a year, two or 'probably' ever.

Up till 2007 I was replacing those motors regualrly, in '07 I installed the autotrix and both windows still roll up and down perfectly. Not one hitch since then. Thats three years so far of perfect operation.

 

will it help get the passenger side window faster ??

 

^ Yes. But I also replaced the motor at the same time but I have had no problems with mine and it's been around 4 years.

 

nice thread

 

Thanks all, I hope it helps some folks out. I might be wrong because they all go through the same 5 wire circuits, but I believe the fix for the pass. window speed issue only changes the speed of the pass. side and has no effect on the drivers side. I'll have to look into it.

 

The driver side doesn't need the fix that the passenger side needs. The reason the passenger side is so slow is that power for it passes first through the driver side motor, then all the way across the car, to the passenger side motor. So it always receives less power.

 

True. The motor only draws power for the window itself. The reason the passenger side seems quicker is because it's not making the extra route through the driver's side first. Speeds are the same, your passenger will just finally be as quick as your driver's if you were ONLY operating the driver's.

 

Is the AutoTrix kit still available? I checked their website, but it looks kind of out of date, are they still around?

 

ya they are... just looked at it a bit ago.... i got the autotrix for mine a couple yrs ago and it is still going good... prob one of the best things I got for the car

 

I want to thank the OP, I came across this a few months ago and it brought my passenger motor back to life. I forgot how you used a paper clip to hold the little magnets in and couldn't figure how to make them stay put. I ended up pulling the "shaft" out and placing the cap with the magnets and coils back on the shaft, then shoving the shaft back into the body. It worked out alot easier for me lol. Thanks again.

 

I don't know how y'all are going through window motors every year... I bought a Camaro about a year and a half ago. I pulled the door panels off of it to re-wrap the leather with suede. While I was in there, I noticed that the window motors have never been replaced. It's a 2000 model so that's almost 11 years of factory window motors. The pass side is slow, but it still works. And on top of all that, I'm a smoker so I roll the windows down ALL THE TIME. Pretty much every time I get in the car I roll the windows down and when I park, I roll them up. Maybe the motors go bad from not using them???

 

No problem man, I'm glad somebody finally used the information!