Windows & Door Locks Don't Work

[Auntbetty]

Brand new to the forum. I have a 1993 Surf with the 3.0 litre engine that I've owned for just over a year. I live in Canada and it's been a fabulous truck for the most part.

Just recently all my windows from all switches and the electric locks stopped working. Initially they worked if I had the door all the way open but now nothing works. I removed the master assembly and cleaned all contacts with no results. I found a thread on another forum re. a 30amp fuse that is perhaps about the main fuse box by the drivers side panel but it got too dark on me to find it. I did find a relay in the same location that is marked Door and is about the size of an iPhone. Any way of testing it?

Where else should I be looking for a relay or other troubleshooting tips? Because the windows don't open from any other switch (passenger, centre console) I'm thinking it's a relay and not simply a kinked wire in the door, but perhaps I'm wrong?

Any help much appreciated.

[korat102]

Ello.

If all the electrical bits in the door worked only with the door wide open for a while but now don't, I'd suspect a broken wire in the rubber boot between the door and the chassis. Unfortunately, the only way to find it is to disconnect the boot and examine the wires, possibly having to unwrap protective tape as well. The fix will be to replace the affected loom or bridge the breaks by soldering lengths of wire across them. Unless you're good with a soldering iron and electrical things in general, this is probably a job for an auto-electrician.

[Auntbetty]

Thanks for the quick reply. My confusion is why the passenger and centre console switches stopped working at the same time. Could be somehow be affected by the wire break in the harness of the master assembly? I wonder if there is someway to disconnect the wire harness and pass a current through each of the wires and check to see if there is a break by putting a lead on the corresponding wire at the opposite end of the harness?

[korat102]

Common earths/power supply wires cause all sorts of strange effects when they go open circuit or gain a high resistance for some reason. If you're going to start poking around in the harness you'll want to get hold of a wiring diagram so you know what wire does what. You definitely don't want to be sending stray currents back to the ECU.

[Auntbetty]

So I took the door apart and removed the wiring loom from the main switch assembly and after peeling off a little protective tape I found 5 wires completely severed and 2 that the insulation was broken. After some soldering I put everything back together and everything is back as it should be. 3.5hrs of labour and it's as good as new!

[korat102]

Sounds like a good result there :)

[Auntbetty]

Yeah it was all pretty slick. I found a link in another Surf forum that walked me through taking the loom out. Good project since it gives me more confidence to tackle more on this love affair... er...Surf. The next project is to remove the injectors to find the poor starting/ blue smoke on start up issue.