RE: [Chrysler300] Power Window Wars

["'John Grady' jkg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [Chrysler300]" <Chrysler300-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tom, 

I would use the other power windows as an indicator, or ability to crank
car,  as indicators of battery. The super duper battery chargers are mostly
BS ,as you can tell very little of AH or battery charge state from terminal
volts at rest. (engineering fact) Your observation of "charge time makes no
sense" is right...% full impossible to tell, from volts, despite fancy
claims.  Went through this..consider a battery of 80 AH , a good one fully
charged, rest volts about 12.6 . Takes about 2 + hours to fill if dead with
35 A alternator ; however if full and you put a trickle charger etc on it
over storage (winter) , they are putting out about 100mA ; = .1 amp ; in 24
hours you have 2.4 AH, in 30 days 72 AH; into a battery already full. (2x
overcharge) that turns the water to gas, battery is junk after a few months
of this. Automatic chargers read volts and try to deal with this , but an
unloaded resting good charged battery with 10 AH might read 12.6,  as will a
bad battery,  as will a full battery. Automatic turns on, because of the
12.6,   raises to 13.8 and off; repeats, over and over . = See
overcharge!!...Approach is a loser. Sick of buying 4-5 batteries every
spring. Now I put it on once a month for a few days. Many battery chargers
read battery volts by a divider resistor , draining battery into charger if
you just unplug the charger --you have to pull clips too..../especially junk
ones harbor tool sells. (LED is still on when not plugged in,  showing that
drain). Note that the car VR raises it to 14 or so, only when car is
running..it sits then for a long time ; there is no attempt to maintain
charge , once full, just fill it back up to 14 at start --it IS full at 14
on charge for sure . I noted 10 year old Toyotas run like that, still have
original battery, yet 300 big new battery on "fancy charger" cannot make one
winter without degradation ? 

Back to PW, You could measure amp draw of motor with 0-20 or 0-30 ammeter,
ought to be same up and down with spring right, compare what you see to
others  ; beyond battery , you might have a problem in motor, stuck brush in
brush holder,---ammeter will flicker and waver(and brush is burning)  ;
assume all rollers free and working. On early ones (Some F for sure) there
is a circuit breaker inside the motor at brush. It can get rusty and poor
contact, erratic behavior ; I have shorted them out,(solder wire across it)
there to protect motor from burnout if kid holds switch after window is
up,-- I have taken to drilling drain hole .060 at obvious low place, heater
motors too, get condensation out. 

Best, John G  

-----Original Message-----
From: Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of 'DeBusk Thomas L.' tleed@xxxxxxxx [Chrysler300]
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2014 11:55 AM
To: chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Chrysler300] Power Window Wars

A little while ago, the three little nylon gear plugs in the front passenger
window motor in my Hurst vaporized. Not to worry. I just replaced the ones
in the driver's side last summer, so with the benefit of experience, I
figured the passenger's side would be a breeze. And since Advance Auto sells
the exact parts I needed as "Window Regulator Gear Plugs", Item #74410 (for
late-model FORDS!), I knew exactly what I needed.

If only life could be so easy.

Of course I knew the mechanism is spring-loaded. But a client called me on
the phone while I was working. Nearly took my fingers off when the clock
spring let go! (Focus, focus.)

Now if someone wants to chime in with a safe, foolproof way to unload the
spring pressure, then I'm all ears, but that's not my most pressing
question.

After I got finished re-installing at midnight last night, the window was
very sluggish going up. Just about refused. Well, I had the car on the
battery charger intermittently through the winter, and I hadn't driven it
yet this summer because the window wouldn't go up. But the battery was low
when I started the window work a few days ago, so I put the charger on it. I
have a super-duper modern charger that tells me the battery percentage and
volts currently in the battery. After charging and before starting on the
window, it was at 100% charge. But by the time I was ready to raise the
window, the door had been open for a couple of hours, and the dome light had
been draining the battery. I had taken the charger off the battery when I
started working on the window, and it now showed only 80% charge when I
hooked it back up.

After only 15-20 minutes, the charger showed 95% charge, which is a little
odd, because it shouldn't charge that fast if you have 80%. But the window
worked significantly better. In fact, both front windows had been
super-sluggish when the charger read 80%, but both worked OK when it was
reading 95%.

So here's my question. Is there a "proper" amount of tension on the clock
spring when you re-install it? I basically just mounted the center on the
split pin and then wound the arm around to the post it engages. Considering
how much tension is there, I was just happy to get it installed. I wasn't
really thinking about putting extra tension on it. But if I understand it's
purpose correctly, it's there to support the weight of the window; the motor
just moves the window. What I'm asking is how much of the weight of the
window is the spring supposed to carry? A lot? Or just a little? Is it
possible to put more tension on it by installing it a certain way, or by
putting it in a vice and mechanically leveraging the arm? Is that either
possible, desirable, or necessary?

Given my scenario, I'm trying to figure out whether I need to go back into
both doors and "tighten up" the springs, however you might do that, because
they're not "carrying their weight" sufficiently, or am I dealing with a
weak battery that's trying to tell me it's time to replace it?

Thomas DeBusk

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Posted by: "DeBusk Thomas L." <tleed@xxxxxxxx>
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Posted by: "John Grady" <jkg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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