Here it is...some important information that I hope helps a lot of people.

My driver's side window would stop working and then work again. This happened twice, then on the third time it would not work and it did not come back. I decided to fix this and ordered a new motor from www.rockauto.com. Rock's price was great, $75, but the motor they sent me did not work either (poor job of refurbishing a used part.) So I did some more "fiddling" with the motor.

Here is what I found out. If I played with the molded electrical connector that is part of the motor's cable housing, I could get the replacement motor to work. See the red circle. I just sqeezed the connector towards the metal motor housing.

If I played with the same connector on the original, bad, motor, I could get it to work too! So...both motors would not work unless I messed with the connector. The connector is a molded plastic piece with a right angle in it. Playing with it would produce a crackling, electrical sparking sound right at the time the motor would start working again. What is happening here is simple. The poorly designed/manufactured connector is developing an "open" that keeps the circuit from being made. The motor itself is not the problem. Since this was true on BOTH motors I had to play with, I believe this problem probably is what is causing grief for most if not all of my fellow Corvette drivers with window problems.
"That is great! How do you fix the problem though?" you might be asking. Well, I wish I had taken pictures, but maybe 1000 words will do instead. Actually, the fix is quite simple...if you know how to solder.

THE FIX:

First, the service manual says to service the motor and the regulator as a unit. This is not the only thing you can do. The motor CAN be separated from the regulator and replaced. You have to remove both to do the fix, but you don’t need to replace the regulator.

First remove the door panel by removing the plastic plug behind the handle/pull. Remove the two torx inside this hole (T30). Now you have to basically rip the bottom of the panel away from the door, working your way up the sides, then lift the panel up and away. If you break any of the white plastic retaining rivets, you can buy a bag of them at NAPA auto parts (how do I know this?

Now you have to remove the window glass. You have to have the window all the way up to do this. If yours will not roll up, take out the door speaker to gain access to the window motor and squeeze the connector on top of it towards the motor while pushing the "up" button and you will probably be rewarded. The access holes for the window fasteners are covered by black squares that have to be ripped off. Be careful and you can reuse these black squares. While you are at it, remove the BIG rubber diaphragm from the back half of the door. This diaphragm can be reused, but be careful, as mine was a little brittle and developed some tears. Once you have the glass out, operate the regulator back down to the middle of its travel. You need to do this to remove tension from the regulator cables or you will not be able to swap motors as everything in the cable reel will be bound up.

Ok, now remove the regulator by removing two nuts on the top of the door and one on the bottom/back of the door. Don't forget to take the three nuts off that hold the window motor in place. Now push all six studs into the holes they come out of to release the motor/regulator assembly. The whole assembly is floppy now and can be folded up to come out of the large hole in the back half of the door.

Now, put the assembly on a work table/area. See the springs where the cables go into the cable reel compartment? If the window regulator is in the up or down position, one of these springs will be completely compressed and you will not be able to take the cable compartment cover plate off. If you forgot to roll the window half way down after removing the glass, you can still do this buy hooking up 12 volts to the motor. Reverse the polarity if it does not move the direction you need it too. Be careful, I can't be blamed if you mess this up, but if you are ok with electrons, you can do this simply.

Now remove the metal plate from the plastic cable reel housing. Carefully remove the cable spool and hold it and its coils together with a clamp or something. Next release the “can” portion of the motor by removing the four torx that hold it to the reel housing.. Next, split the housing by removing its torx.

Ok, here is where you fix the problem. You are going to add a new connector. The connector I used was a two pole connector from the “trailer wiring” center at NAPA. You will solder these new connector leads to the leads that come out of the molded OEM connector. Am I making sense? You will see bare wires coming out of the OEM connector. Just solder new wires from you trailer connector onto those leads.

Your new connector needs to find a way out of the housing, so locate the pliable, white, rubbery/plastic spacer that goes between the motor and the reel housing. I have arrows pointing to it my picture above, but this rebuilt unit has been painted black. Your OEM motor will have it unpainted…white. With an hobby knife, cut two “V” grooves for your wires to exit. Now put everything back together.

You must now put the mating “trailer” connector onto the wire coming from the car door to the motor. I simply cut the old connector off, twisted it together with the new connector and then soldered them BOTH back onto the stock wires. Now I had BOTH connectors and I connected both of them to the motor. This preserves the stock wiring…kind of, and seals it all up. Use heat shrink and tape to make your wires look nice.

Clear as mud? Sorry, I needed to do the fix in a hurry and did not take pictures during the process. I hope my words can guide you through. You will need some basic soldering skills. If you cannot follow my poor instructions, then this is probably not a job for you. Not an insult, but a reality check for those without medium tinkering skills.

I offer this fix to save you money and to prevent you from having future failures. I believe this problem is a design/manufacturing issue and will come back repeatedly if you simply keep replacing the bad part with another, soon to be bad part. Also, there is no need to spend $300 on a new regulator/motor assembly when you can simply replace the connector for < $5.

--Dale

 

Thanks - good info to file.

 

Great discovery and write-up, thanks!

 

WOW ! Nice write-up. Thanks for sharing.

 

Great info , I'm sure this will save everyone a lot of MOD MONEY !

 

 

Excellent thing to ponder as I just replaced the passenger reg. Will checkout the old motor. Thanks for the info.

 

Thanks for responding guys.

I have received so much helpfull information from this web site and its members. Finally, I feel I have given something back that can be usefull. I hope I have indeed found the solution that will help many Vette people save money. If I had taken pictures during the project, I would have pushed to have this put in the articles sectioin.

Laterz,
Dale

 

Flash! Please check the old motor and report your findings back to this thread. I am VERY interested to see if the problem is your connector. On one motor, the refurb, I had to press pretty hard. On the original motor I only had to press a little.

Dale

 

Will do may take a few days

 

Thanks.