924Board.org

[kondzi]

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Konrad
'89 951 US
'88 Mustang 5.0 LX Convertible (factory specs)
'84 911 Carrera 3.2 RoW (factory specs)
'81 931 RoW (TBD)
'81 Ford Capri 2.8i (factory specs)
'79 Ford Capri 2.9 (heavily modded)

[Gatornapper]

SUPER!

[Beartooth]

This thread should come in helpful soon, assuming I don't hit any sudden roadblocks getting my car going. The driver's side window is down, has been down since I got it, the door card is out, and it looks like somebody was fiddling with the switches and wiring. I moved it in the garage as soon as I got it, so getting the window up hasn't been a priority, but will be if/when I get it to where it's driveable. Given some of the questionable "repairs" I've found on the car, I may find myself having to back-track some things the PO did to get the windows working again. Nice to have some good information to work from!
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1980 931 diamond in the rough

[Gatornapper]

I'm hyper-busy right now but when I get some time I'll get the door panel down and chase down the wiring details and post them here.

GN
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'87 944 S, looks & runs like new - sold my sweet 931; '76 914 2.0 mostly restored; 2011 Porsche Cayman S in Meteor Grey, 3.4L, Softronics ECU tune 355+hp , PDK w/Sport Chrono. Got this thing for Porsche's.......

[Gatornapper]

Only 3 wires go to the switch on either door: Brn ground, red/white - hot for up; red/black - hot for down.

Connector in lower kick panel in front of door on right and left.

Only 2 blue wires go to window motor - from the switch. There are no limit switches on the motors to cut motors off when windows reach their limit.

No idea WHY there are separate 12v + wires to the window switches when one would do.

My red/white wire had bad connection in panel connector. I used 12v+ from the black wire to power the window up and it worked fine - before I found the connector and fixed the problem.

Rebuilt right switch - down works fine, but not up. On driver door that used to work fine until recently now the up works for right window but not down.
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'87 944 S, looks & runs like new - sold my sweet 931; '76 914 2.0 mostly restored; 2011 Porsche Cayman S in Meteor Grey, 3.4L, Softronics ECU tune 355+hp , PDK w/Sport Chrono. Got this thing for Porsche's.......

[Jaffar]

I am not sure whether you have seen this video, but this worked for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbwk991LEfM

This guy has a few really useful videos on early 944s which also relate to 924s.
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Porsche 944/924, Lotus Elan.

[Beartooth]

I just cleaned up all my switches and put them back in. I'm actually not sure there was any issue with the switches: I kind of assumed there was because the driver's window was down and the door card has been off since I got it. The good news is, they all seem to work great; the bad news is that the driver's window won't move. You can hear the motor working, along with kind of a heavy clicking sound, so obviously something in the drive and/or regulator mechanism is broken.

Everything on the switches was correctly oriented when I took them apart. The contacts on both driver's side switches were significantly pitted though. I cleaned them up with Simple Green, water, and an old toothbrush. There was some mess from the grease in them: I'm not sure if somebody had taken them apart and added grease, or if it was just the original grease breaking down over time. Either way, that doesn't help electric contacts. I cleaned up the metal rocker contacts with a polishing stone on my Dremel, which did a nice job without removing too much material. I had to use a pencil stone to reach the top and bottom contacts in the socket part of the switch. I cleaned them again with automotive electrical parts cleaner, then used some Deoxit products (they make high grade cleaners, conditioners, and greases for stereo components) just to make sure any oxidation was gone, and finished it off with a contact conditioner. I assembled them with just a drop of grease where the BBs sit in the rockers; definitely a place to be minimal. A lot of grease will just make a mess and probably cause the switch to fail eventually.

For someone troubleshooting and just trying to get a switch working again, you could probably get there by wiping off the old grease, scrubbing with a brush and electrical cleaner, then giving it a final flush and blow out. I'd at least scrape the contacts with a screwdriver, and I'm not sure how long a quick clean is going to hold up. I suspect at some point the pitting on the contacts causes them to fail quickly: I've always been able to get switches to work well if I can file the contacts down flat. At some point, it sounds like you have to bend the ends of the rockers down slightly to compensate for the thinner contacts, and at that point, new switches are probably a better answer. I can't see any reason why you couldn't get any switch to work unless one of the pieces breaks, but at $30 or so a pop, it may not take much fiddling before you're burning more time than it's worth.

Anyway, lots of good info in this thread. It's very counter-intuitive to think that the switch on the right side could be fine but not function. Also, while I don't think most of us would just assume the rockers could go just any way, I definitely wouldn't have known if I was looking at one that was assembled wrong. One could just buy three new switches and be on their merry way (nothing wrong with that), but I for one can't stand the idea of spending money to fix something when fifteen minutes and a little know-how might be all it needs!
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1980 931 diamond in the rough