Power windows
We did the power window conversion over the weekend, following a popular guide made it very easy to do step by step, we opted to use new PW motors instead of going to the salvage yard and looking for used units, because your suppose to use motors from a '99 down Saturn SC2 their old enough and rare enough to prolly be a waste of time looking for them, most yards in our area hardly go back much over 10 years, if your looking for anything older it's a crap shoot, then who knows how long they would last.
Dorman sells the motors, they were less than $30 ea, and came with the pigtail wiring for the motor connections which is important to get a weather tight seal at the connections.
A couple things the guide we followed didn't mention is that the slicks window regulator has a "clock spring" that is a very heavy unit, the purpose of this spring is to help you raise the window, giving assist while you crank it up.
To get the window regulator out of the truck the window must be in the lowest position so you can remove the arm from the lift channel, this of course has the spring at it's tightest point or rate. The first step once out on the bench is to grind off the heads of the three rivets that hold the old gear/spline to the regulator, a word of caution here since the spring is under it's maximum amount of pressure there is a good chance once the rivets are ground off at any point it could release that energy sending the arm into the "window up position" if your fingers are in the path of the arm it could be bad news.
Luckily on the first one I was pushing the rivets out with a hammer and punch when the arm took off, the regulator jumped up off the bench but no real harm done, the second one I unwound the spring to it's up position before removing a lot of the stored energy but it still could do some harm if you were not paying attention.
The other thing the guide didn't really mention is the orientation of the motors between the drivers and passenger door, this is really kinda' important because either motor will fit either regulator but won't fit in the door which was a mistake I made on the drivers door, it might have been obvious to some people who know the trucks inside and out, but I made the mistake of using the wrong motor and spent a lot of time trying to figure out why it wouldn't line up in the mounting area.
Even with the correct motor it's still a tight fit and the regulator doesn't really want to fit back flush against the inside of the door but is close enough that a couple longer screws at the top will hold it just fine.
I also had to grind one corner of the plastic gear box on the window motor, not a lot but just enough to get it to fit flat and square on the regulator.
The motors are more than powerful enough to lift the windows, no problem at all, really it's a pretty easy modification that is worth doing.
The other side of this installation is of course the PW switches to run the motors, we bought again Dorman PW switches for older GM vehicles that mount pretty easily using a piece of spring steel to hold them in the proper opening.
Again the switches are pretty cheap to buy, but when I got to that point and started looking at the area I had planed to use in the door it wasn't going to work because of the inner structure of the door that has all the reinforcement for the door hinges, there were other places that offered enough room but they would create other problems down the road if you had to remove the regulator again.
Then I had originally thought I'd just solder the wires to the back of the switch terminals, yeah it's plastic but it could be done if your careful, but that creates a problem if you ever want to remove the switch, it really needs a plug at the switch like the factory used so the wiring and switch can be separated easily in the future.
We had bought 3 switches total two singles and one double because we were not sure where we would end up mounting them, the singles use a 5 pin connector that isn't available at any of our local parts stores, the double (drivers side) uses a 6 pin connector and also is a special order item.
I really didn't want to cut up the doors to install the window switches, of course there are other ways to run the motors up and down with a simple DPDT center off toggle switch that could be mounted anywhere, but I want a more custom look that is semi-flexible or changeable, so I decided to just make a new face plate for the console that would allow me to put the switches in it.
Again I need the wiring pigtail connections so the face plate can be removed, so we decided to just use the two single switches mounted in the console and ordered the wiring connectors from Summit, so it'll be a few days before they arrive and we have the job 100% complete....in the mean time I can run the windows up and down by just adding power to the wires from the fuse box.
When the wiring is complete I'll add a 20a circuit breaker to the power feed instead of a fuse, I'm not using relays to run the motors although you could if you wanted to, the circuit breaker is a better solution than a fuse in this situation in-case a switch would stick closed.
So I'll finish the post when the pigtails come in and I get the wiring completed.
Jon