Hello Guys need some help.

We did two updates tonight on the 240 and felt like we accomplished something until we couldn't roll up with front two windows.

I rolled the two front windows down before doing the following.

1st helped my son install rear speakers and taking the rear door panels off then attached to two rear + to the car stereo. The radio is working through the rear speakers. Great!

2nd - we installed a stock Vdo Volvo Tach. Works great!

All windows are now not working. The bad part is my two front windows are down and we live in Oregon. Very Bad!

I'm thinking maybe the back window switches got installed incorrectly but the switch appears to only goes one way.

I replaced fuse #10 with an old fuse but still didn't work. I tried to over-ride power and ground to the front driver switch. Nothing.

Any ideas? As far as I can tell everything else is working on the car. Lights, starts right up, tach is working, dash lights, etc.

Tach - I don't have the small clock to install so I left the back of the Tach exposed. Thinking maybe I should connect the wire for the clock even though I don't have one? Not sure.

My son and I went from super happy having new rear speakers and a working tach (removed the large clock) to frustration.

 

what year and version car is this? a 240 sedan, I would have cut the rear speakers into the rear deck instead of the doors, I have 6.5" high power JL Audio coax speakers there on our 240 sedan and it rocks hard driven by a '50Wx4' Alpine deck, no amp required..

I'm not sure how the rear window circuit could mess with the front windows, but they are all on the same power circuit, and the rear door switches are wired to the rear window switches in the drivers door.

re your tach, put a piece of tape across the connector on the back of the tach if you're afraid something could short into it.

what year 240 is this? there were a lot of wiring changes year to year and decade to decade

Also... I would get a fresh set of enough brass/copper fuses to replace ALL your old fuses. the standard tin ones don't age well, they crack invisibly and act erratically. if there's corrosion on the fuse holder contacts, clean then with a pink pencil eraser, that will remove crud and oxide without removing the metal plating. They sell these brass/copper ceramic fuses on ebay as 'mercedes w123/w124 fuses' (the 1980s,90s 300D,300E family used the same fuses)

 

I would assume 1st that you did something to the circuit when doing your speaker install. If you start with the driver door window switch group do you have +12v at the switch with the key on. If not then you need to trace the main feed back through to the fuse block. Also I believe the switches only pick a relay to supply power to the window motors. If so you need to check if the relays are fed by a 12V supply. I don't know the circuit diagram for this year car. The only way to get the windows up now is to pull the door panels and disconnect the window motor wires and then put +12v on one and ground the other. If the window does not go up just reverse the + and -. I still think you screwed something up on the speaker install. Revisit that .

 

1990 Volvo 240 DL 4 door sedan. Note I had cleaned up all the contacts with new fuses a few months back. But I'm out of new red fuses so will need to find new ones.

At this point I just want to get the windows up then diagnose the issue. I will take the front door panels off and try to give power directly to the window motors.

On the speakers all I did was remove the rear stock speakers and install 4 inch Pioneers then connect the rear speaker + wires as the grounds already hooked up. I'm wondering if while I took the rear door panels off I moved some of the old wires to the windows around and shorted one of the wires.

Just sucks trying to make an improvement then something else goes out.

 

If you would have shorted out a wire then you would blow a fuse or burn a wire someplace.

 

at least 1990 is not one of the biodegradable wiring cars (82-87 are highly suspect).

digging out my 1990 240 greenbook....

lets see. battery to positive terminal to fuse 10 goes to the switch side of the window relay. battery to positive terminal to ignition switch to fuse 12 goes to the coil side of said relay. this relay is shown as being below the left side of the center console air vent.

so if the ignition key is ON, there should be power at the 'middle' wire to each switch.

passenger front door is simplest, so lets start there. the harness goes straight from the relay across the dash and down the passenger wall forward of the hinge, there's a 3 pin connector. from the harness its 'green', 'red', 'white' where red is power, and green&white are window up-or-down from the drivers master switch. the bottom, output, side of this connector is black, yellow, red, where yellow is the power, and that yellow is the power into the passenger side front door switch.

the power to the REAR door switches comes from the 'kid safe' switch on the driver door. power *to* the driver door comes from that same relay on a red wire to a 4 pin connector, and its a red wire to the drivers master switches.


the relay has pins...
- 85 - black to ground
- 86 - blue-yellow from fuse 12 (powered with ignition, pick up on side of fuse panel)
- 30 - brown from fuse 10, always powered (you can pick this up on the side of the fuse panel, too)
- 87 - two red wires to the two front door window switch

note on the fuse panel, to the right of each fuse is 3 tabs. the rear most tab (most to the right) is the 'input' and goes to the left side of the fuse. the middle and front/left tabs are the output and go to the right side of the fuse.

first thing I'd do is use a volt meter to verify there is power at the fuse panel to those wires. if no power there, then replace fuses, check again.

2nd thing I'd do is get into the front door panels, and switches, find those red wires and verify there's power there when the ignition is on. if no power then i'd be digging out that relay and checking it. there's 4 total relays under that center air vent, the right most one, long and on its side, is the OD relay, the two middle ones, identical, are power doors, and the left most one is the power window power relay.

 

Thanks Pierce.

Replace fuse
I have power to fuse #10 with key in second position
Pulled the driver side panel and found no power to the red wires to the driver window switch

For now I ran power from fuse #10 to the driver and passenger switch temporarily to roll-up both front windows. So for now I'm good but will now continue to diagnose the issue.

I did buy a window relay from IPD today and it sounds as though my next step is to replace the relay. I think that I will also connect the Tach wire that goes to the clock and just tape it over the connections.

BTW its nice to have a Tach

 

Tox think about this also: the windows worked before you did the speakers and the tach. So which one of these required you to affect that fuse or relay???? Just sayin

 

jagtoes -

Thanks. I was thinking of taking the cluster back out and look for exposed wires. The radio wires are a mess so also wondering if that is causing issues. Thinking of getting a radio wire plug to organize all these wires.

Tox

 

My son drove the 240 today and the front windows are now working again just out of the blue. Rear windows still not working. Crazy wiring?

 

the rear window power goes through the 'kid' switch in the driver door, then back out of the front door, down and back under the door sill, and forks, up the B pillar to the left rear door, and the wires to the right side goes across the car to the right B pillar, up and to the right rear door.

 

The 81 GLT i just bought has window issues as well, only the rear driver side power window works, thoughts?

 

thoughts? its 33 years old, its amazing ANY of them work.

hmm, I don't seem to have the 1981 greenbook handy, but the 1980 greenbook says... a 4-door is pretty much what I described above... ALL the power for the rear window switches goes through the drivers door and that 'child lockout' switch. all the rear windows are also wired to the drivers door override buttons. the front passenger door gets its normal power directly off the window relay, which is energized from the ignition switch (via fuse 12) and switches the window power from fuse 10.

so the other windows don't work from the buttons on the drivers door OR the buttons on their own door? the rear/left works from both buttons, or just the rear door switch?

I dunno but the only way I could debug that would be with all 4 door panels removed, and a volt meter and a copy of the greenbook wiring diagram. you could have 3 dead motor/regulators, or a bunch of dead switches, or some bad wiring. each window motor is wired to the switch in its own door's pins 1 and 2. the switches either run power to pin 1 and ground to pin 2, or ground to pin 1 and power to pin 2. power goes into the switch on pin 4, and ground goes into the switch on pins 3 and 5 via the switches on the front door. when the switches are in 'neutral', both pins 1 and 2 are connected straight through to pins 3 and 5 respectively, which normally grounds them both (unless the corresponding front door switch is being depressed).

 

Yeah the only one that works only works with the drivers door switch, so that is where ill start.

thankfully i do have the green books for this year and model however wiring diagrams and electronics are not my forte.

 

in the drivers door, swap the left and right rear door switch, then see if which rear window still works. if the other one now works, then thats the only good switch of the whole lot. if the same left-rear still works with the other switch, then those two switches area apparently both OK, and the right rear door is a wiring or motor problem.

 

Ok, cool, ill trouble shoot that and see what i can come up with.
door panels are a lot less intimidating to take apart then the dash.

Thank you for your input! Ill post again after i go through it all.

 

btw, I've restored a number of auto window switches with judicious use of 'DeoxIT', the d100 oil or the d5 spray (or sometimes both).

one switch, from a mercedes 260E, when I removed the rocker, the whole inside of the switch was half filled with this nasty green crusty stuff. I scraped that away with various small pointy objects, then blasted it with the d5 aerosol spray and a q-tip. after all this, 2 of the switch rocker contacts were still quite corroded, so I took a pink pencil eraser, and carefully trimmed a little 1mm x 1mm x 20mm stick from it. I held this so the tip sticks out the end of a tiny pair of needlenose pliers, put a drop of d100 on the tip, and used it to clean the switch contacts, extending the rubber 'stick' in the needlenose and putting a bit more deoxit on it each time ... pretty soon the contacts were shiny new gold looking. did the same (much easier) to the rocker part of the switch, then carefully reassembled it (which in classic mercedes fashion, required several small springs and little ***** to be assembled just so), and fit it back together. worked like new, still does a couple years later.

 

I didn't explain those switch circuits well.

each switch, the motor is connected to pins 1 and 2. ground goes to 3 and 5 and power goes to pin 4. when you don't push the switch, pin 3 connects to 1 and pin 5 connects to 2, so the motor is grounded on both sides. if you push the switch 'up', either pin 1 or 2(I forget) gets + power so the motor goes 'up'. if you push the switch 'down', then the other pin 2 or 1 (I forget) gets + so the motor goes down.

now, the driver door switches are the same, but their pin 1 and 2 output is wired to pins 3 and 5 of the other door switches. so if the drivers door switch is left alone, then its ground/ground through both sets of switches to the motor. push either switch up, and the one side gets +, push either switch down, the other side gets +.

I bet thats all still too confusing. oh well.

 

Haha No worries, the electronics in these car where not perfect so i think it will always be confusing.

I messed around with it for a little bit but i ran out of so i wont be able to fully dive into it until next week.

Once again I appreciate the input it helps me get a better idea of where to start and what not.

 

So i went through some of it and most of the switches are good and there is power going to the window motors so i think the motors are frozen