The driver's side switches for the power locks and the passenger side window seem to be failing. When the lock is pushed it locks the driver's side but very slowly if at all tries to lock the passenger door. After a couple of attempts, it doesn't work at all. The Driver's side switch for the passenger side window will roll down the window but takes a number of attempts to roll it back up again.

Is this common? Could it actually be two bad switches at the same time?

Help!

Thanks,
Stan (Seattle)

 

As far as your door locks are, the switch is operating the driver's side fine. So it is not your switch on the door locks. It is most likely your door lock actuator on the passenger side. You don't say what happens when you use the passenger side switches. I suspect you will get the same thing. I believe that you have problems with your passenger side window and door lock actuators. Let me know what happens from the passenger side switches.

 

I have the exact same problem on my 92 F-150. We now have the switches on the passenger side working but the window still sometimes goes up and sometimes doesn't or sounds bad when it does. We were told that we needed a new motor but I still question that because it seems to work good at times. let me know what you find out, if anything.


Jean:-staun

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 25-Jun-02 AT 03:50 PM (EST)]Guys,
As for the window problem, I've experienced it on my wife's 92 Explorer, my mom's Marquis, etc. There are some rubber ***** inside of the gearbox connected to the motor. Over time the ***** will disentegrate, and depending on where the pieces remaining catch the gear the window will sometimes go up or not. The rubber ***** are there to absorb the shock of the window going up to the top or going down to the bottom.
Here's the fix. I use some 1/2" nylon rod I get from Cadillac Plastics (now GE Polymers I believe), or Piedmont Plastics. Look in your yellow pages and you should be able to find a supplier. Or maybe you could use a wooden dowel.
Take the motor out of the door, it'll usually come out pretty easy. You might have to drill a hole or two in the door. Look in your manual for this procedure.
Now that the motor is out, remove the cover on it. It's usually held on with a Torx head bit. Clean out all of the rubber pieces. Now look at the gear inside of it, it's shaped like a triangle. With all of the rubber cleaned out the gear will spin and will not catch. It needs those rubber ***** in there to catch, but that's where I use the nylon rod.
I usually cut some 1/2" nylon rod into 3 pieces about 3/8" long. I lay those pieces into the gear box on the sides of the triangle. You may have to file down one side of the dowel to get it to fit right. All you are doing is replacing the ***** with another material so the gear will grab and move the window up or down. Reassemble and it'll work fine.
I believe you can buy the replacement parts from Ford, but mine have always broken again in a couple of years.
If you guys need some better directions e-mail me at jbozzelle(No Email Addresses In Posts!)


John

 

I have the same door lock problem. i let it go too long, so now the passenger side only works with the key or the door handle. and until today, i had a problem with the window. it looked like the gears from motor to the arm were out of position. had some other repairs made to her today, and i got them to fix the window, but they wired it backwards!!! up on the switch is down, down is up.....very frustrating. took about 140 bucks for my mechanic to fix, taking it again tomorrow to reverse the wires.

 

I have experienced all the above problems. I replaced the rubber ***** in the window mechanism with some chunks of urethane I cut from some urethane bushings I had left over.

I have had the door lock motor freeze up. That problem is solvable only by replacement. But I just discovered an easier fix. My Mustang had a lock problem, and upon examination, I found that someone had replaced the lock motor with a different type, one that mounts on the inside wall (not the back end) of the door, and piggy-backed it on the rod to the lock. Only problem, they didn't remove the old oem motor, so it eventually jammed the mechanism. I removed it, and the after-market motor works fine. I don't know where it came from, but looks like a much easier solution than drilling out the original mount and replacing it.

A third symptom I had was really the lock switches. The driver and passenger side lock switches are inter-connected, sort of like a 3-way switch in your house. If one of them malfunctions, it can disable power to the other one, and cause it not to work, while still working itself (hope you follow). Anyway, I have taken these switches apart, very carefully, burnished the contacts, then reassembled them with very good success.

So, in summary, it could be any or all of the mentioned symptoms. I would try the cheap test first - clean the switches.


Winford

 

I'll start with cleaning and with any luck that'll do it. Here's hoping!

Thanks for all of the thoughts and ideas.

Stan