Steve Drake

Got my '86.5 really running great Passed smog and actually now CA registered and on the road again. Next - fix all those electrical glitches from the worse to the dim dash lighting.
#1 and the most irritating is the window fails to respond to the switch if I wait for a minute after closing the door. Open the door, close it and immediately use the window switch and all is fine for the rest of that drive.
Same door, Use the lock system with the key to open it and it immediately relocks the door. Go to the other door and unlock it and both doors stay unlocked.
Any clues where to look for the cause of those errors.

So nice to have the car back in service after a few years down. Much appreciate this forum for helping me with the list of stuff to replace to bring the ignition and injection system back to optimum. Took in down to the the removing the cam covers the air flow system and replaced or reworked about everything from the plugs, sensors, injectors, lines, MAF, CPS, and cat oxygen sensor along the way. Going for Ken's Version 4.0 chipset and FPR upgrade now.

MainePorsche

The window and door lock circuitry are separate entities and should not trip each other up if there is a fault. What they do have in common is the fact that their lines pass through a 'stress point' where the wire(s) can get damaged, and behave erratically. This 'point' is in the black tube where the wires enter the door. They are tightly packed in there, and constant motion can insult the wires. The window is simple - sometimes yes, and sometimes no for window function. The door locks are more complicated. The wire feeds to the lock motor are bipolar for lock and unlock and each side is in communication with the other for symmetry. If a wire is faulted it will function on the other side of the motor operation to match the other door. I had this issue and after finding and repairing the faulted wire, all has been good.

Steve Drake

Thanks for the tip on the likely wire fault location.
Will check it out.I was looking for a way to unplug the mirror wires in the other door and was surprised to find they went from the plug in the mirror to the main board with no other connection. The hollow bolt came lose and part of the threads in the mirror support stripped out. Saw how packed those wires are in there and opted to just cut and solder the wires near the plug to rework the part. Cheers, Steve

Steve Drake

Wayne "MainePorsche" is the man on electrical
Just cracked a beer after apparently fixing my Window and Lock bug in the drivers side door. As you said where the end of the tube slides over the wire bundle in the door as it opens and closes I saw a rough spot on one cable cover. Cut it open and found a broken wire. Gray with Brown strip. Checked the rest and they seem OK. Added a bit of wire and soldered and shrink wrapped it. Then wrapped the bundle with self bolding electrical tape. Now how one wire could affect both I could not see as I could not find it in the electrical schematics. I was working outside at the end of the day and I seem to go blind when looking at these drawings in a rush. I never argue with success. About the only hassle was the very short three wires to the mirror switch but I beat before lengthening them. Tried the systems about 6 times and no failures.
When someone points you to a hidden broken wire you know experience is the key to saving lots of time. Because it was shared I am also very grateful. Wish you did not live on the exact opposite corner of the country. Would buy you dinner. Thanks again, Steve in Carlsbad

Alan

Actually the windows and door locks are related on an '86. The Window regulator relay (VI) is the common point. The door locks are only powered when the windows are NOT powered. The windows should be powered on with ignition to accessory mode and then stay powered until you open a door (if the door pin switches work OK).

If the relay gets flaky you may see oddball operation of both windows/sunroof & locks because they may not be powered when you expect them to be.

This doesn't preclude other issues like you found - broken wire was a good find, you may also have lock alignment issues. But expect that the systems are in fact inter-related.

Alan.

MainePorsche

Thanks Alan.
Didn't know that on the 86.

MainePorsche

Steve,
Glad you got it sorted.

Steve Drake

One last comment on this topic. While most of the issues were minimized by fixing the wire in the door harness I still had a random problem with the security system. and door locks. Once and a while the door locks would relock after being opened with the key. Sometimes the alarm would be triggered. After studying the wiring diagram I finally took Alan's advice and replaced the Window /lock relay that on the S3 are codependent on one relay. Just $65 and the random lock problem was finally resolved. Thanks Alan and MainePorsche for sharing your experience with window and door lock issues.
Cheers, Steve

jeff spahn

You have to take the pins out of the connector in the mirror and feed the wires down through the mirror, through the base and then the door. had to do this when I repainted the car.

Petza914

The power mirror wiring is such a ridiculous and PITA design that I discovered when doing the Aero mirrors on my '79. Having to push pins out of a connector and reinsert them in the correct positions, because the connector is bigger than the door hole is crazy.

What I eventually did was buy some of those multi-pin small round screw together connectors that actually fit through the mirror hole in the door. Now I'm able to unscrew the connector and remove each side of the harness from either the mirror opening or from inside the door.