SlickXJ

I've got a bit of a long story for you guys.

I spent most of today fixing little things here and there on my XJ. I got to my final project for the day, which was trying to figure out why my front driver window stopped working. It hasn't worked for about 2 months. It started going up and down slower and slower, and eventually wouldn't go down, but went up. You know how when you hit a switch the lights dim because it's putting a load on the system? Well the up on my front driver window still dims the lights and I hear it, but the down doesn't. So anyways, I was all up in the door, looking around, and I see a disconnected plug. I don't know what it goes to, but I took some pictures (The black one is the one that was laying there, the red one goes into the regulator). While I was in there, I also saw the wire bundle in my door boot has some jerry-rigged crap going on, so I took the bundle and properly fixed it with solder and heatshrink (See pic). So I put everything back together, cleaned contacts out the wazoo, and everything was still the same. Driver window still only showed life when switched up, but not down. I took this as a time of opportunity to lube the window tracks to hopefully prolong the life of the current working regulators. Both passenger windows were fine, nice and smooth now. My rear driver wouldn't go down at first from either switch, and then it went down after a few seconds from the master switch. I lubed it up, and now it won't go up. I heard it on the down switch, dimming lights as well, but nothing on the up. So the exact opposite of my front driver window. Then a few minutes later on another try, it stopped dimming and making noise.

My questions are this:
- Since I plan on going to the junkyard to pull some regulators, what year XJs regulators can I use? I have a 1996 that's essentially a 1997. I was looking on RockAuto and it seems 96 and 97 use different regulators unless I'm missing something

- Is it possible for it to go up/down but not the other and the regulator still be the problem?

BillyBoy

Hey man, i had the same problem. Theres a cool youtube video on how the regulator, and more importantly, the window beam/track work. The track is steel, has a plastic tube on it, with a spiral spring that your regulaator turns, causing a small, and relatively weak piece of white plastic to go up and down in a slot on the steel, hence, moving your window.

That tube and spring tend to get clogged up with silt, dirt, and grease. Theres nnot really anything you can do to clean nit out while its still attached to the jeep. BEFORE you pull the thing out/apart, it might be worth going to a boneyard and getting a spare, so if yours is permanently broken you have another on hand. The removal of the tube and track is a bit tricky and requires some finesse since you have to basically rotate the whole assembly inside the door as you take it out, and the tube becomes kinda brittle over time and can crack.

Advice...?
1, Have another on stand by.
2. Wait till summer to do this?
3. Be GENTLE with the tube!
4. Watch the youtube video on the regulator, the guys pretty smart.
5. Use silicon based spray. (I cant stress this enough, SILICONE, it leaves a layer of slippery when it drys and doesnt cclog stuff up.... NOT WD40 or plain PD... SILICONE.)
6. Go to the boneyard first. When taking it apart, you can get some practice on rotating the tube out of the door, (so you dont break yours)and if you break theirs while removing, find another donor.

Good luck, Bill

BillyBoy

Also, have some duct tape on hand... i unbolted my widow, then pushed/pulled it up to "closed" then duct taped it from the top sill to hold it outta the way. Use alot of tape, broken windows suck.

SlickXJ

So, it was raining for the last week and some change, so I didn't have a chance to get out to the junkyards until today. When to my local yard, not a single donor. There were only 2 Cherokees out of 100s of cars. Went to their other location, found 6 or so Cherokees, only 1 possible donor. Was from a 93 with the exact door panels and all of mine, just 3 years older. Got it out, was $42 in the end, and got home and put it in. Doesn't work. No light dimming from the load. I'm assuming that one is dead too since it's from a car that's 3 years older than mine, and had considerably more miles.

But I'd like to test to see if it's getting power to that red connector to the regulator. There's two wires, brown and purple, and I was wondering which was positive and negative, and what kind of voltage should I be looking for since I'll be testing with a DMM. I'll see if I can find it on google inbetween now and tomorrow when I check this again, but I figured I'd ask here to see if anyone knows by chance. Thanks in advance for any input!

SlickXJ

Completely spaced and forgot I have a Haynes manual for my Jeep lol. I found the diagram, but what voltage should I be looking for at the regulator connector? Worst case scenario I pop a working windows door panel off and check, but incase anyone knows off hand, that'd be nice.

JeepJeepin

Check for battery voltage

SlickXJ

So it's not getting anything. Also, my blower motor went out a couple weeks ago, around the same time as the window. I checked voltage to the blower motor, only getting 5V and some change. I'm thinking a bad ground, and I'm going to use this as a reference:

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f2/eng...130071/index2/

Are there any other things I should look at while I'm digging around that could be the culprit?

Another question. When I put my DMM one way from battery negative to the blower motor negative, it shows continuity, but the other way (IE flipping my DMM leads around) shows upwards of 300 ohms of resistance. Which way is the proper way to put the DMM leads from the battery negative to the blower motor connector negative?