Re: Power window failures

Posted by Dave Brownell On 2014/6/30 9:23:16

As I write this, three quarters of my electric motors are functioning after fifty-eight years. The right rear of my hardtop is manually operated (Clampett-style, by gripping the frame with fingers and pulling up and down, usually before letting others see me do it). The motor and gear was removed by the previous owner and I have not seen fit to do much more investigating because of the chore of removing seats and side upholstery panels. My weatherstriping does cause some binding and wear, and I will presume that's the root cause of the failure at some time.

I still have the old motor and gear in a box in the barn, so I don't know if it was a Delco or the L-N variety. If it's a Delco, then my GM experiences with many of their regulator motors will make me think of open circuits caused by a tripped thermal protection. For several decades, when the usual first try of a good slapping of the motor with a well-placed rubber mallet blow didn''t work, my electrical guy would take out the Delco motor and work around the thermal fuse, warning me not to allow the motor to stall when used. Lubrication of the mechanism would be done before the unit was reinstalled. This fix has lasted twenty years or longer in some of my older GM cars. If you think Packard parts are scarce, look no further than what bankruptcy did to GM parts distribution. For Corvettes older than 1997, sometimes a part is available only from recyclers and even the dealers are bemoaning that.

I'll take another look at my removed window motor, take a deep breath, and determine if I really want to tackle it. After all, six months of pulling and pushing one window is a whole lot easier than the alternative repair. The car's A/C effectiveness tilts the scale even more into doing nothing soon. The embarrasment of my lazy approach might shame me into having a more fully functioning Packard, but not until I am caught.