Looking at getting another DeLorean, so I need a little help, please!

[DeLoreanDMC81]

Oh OK, you are correct. My glove box doesn't have a light, at all. I gues the previous owner removed it for whatever reason? It still has the switch hanging under the dash area. So at least I know where the switch wires are. lol

Here is the next question, out of the 3 wires, in the picture of my previous post, which one will hook up to the door? It's just problematic because you can't just tell me to hook up the purple one, because they're all purple. lol

One has a long black plastic connector with 2 wires coming from it. The other has a long black plastic connector with only one wire. And the other one is wrapped around the 2 other wires and has just a bare metal connector.

As always, any help is truly appreciated.

Thanks!

James
2168 & 6408

[Jonathan]

Oh OK, you are correct. My glove box doesn't have a light, at all. I gues the previous owner removed it for whatever reason? It still has the switch hanging under the dash area. So at least I know where the switch wires are. lol

Here is the next question, out of the 3 wires, in the picture of my previous post, which one will hook up to the door? It's just problematic because you can't just tell me to hook up the purple one, because they're all purple. lol

One has a long black plastic connector with 2 wires coming from it. The other has a long black plastic connector with only one wire. And the other one is wrapped around the 2 other wires and has just a bare metal connector.

As always, any help is truly appreciated.

Thanks!

James
2168 & 6408

Ok, I think this will help. Here are two pictures I just took of my own car:

First picture shows the door light switch wires in the upper right (and the speaker in the lower left as well as the glovebox wires). You can see how of the two connections on that switch, one connection is a pair of black ground wires and the second connection is a purple/white striped wire. I believe in your photo, these black wires are disappearing up and out of view, but the missing purple and white wire is that one you see without a decent connector on it.

IMG_2782.jpg

In the second photo, you can see better the glovebox light bulb connections. These are the ones with the nice, black connectors on them and one of the connections has a pair of purple wires and the other connection has the single wire, but you should note it also has a white stripe on the purple too. These stripes aren't that easy to see sometimes. If you want a worse example, go and try to see the difference in the green and light green stripes that are on the full throttle microswitch connections in the engine bay. They get worse when they get faded, so luckily the ones under the dash don't see much daylight.

IMG_2792.jpg

What you should be able to do is attach the metal connector end of the single wire to the door plunger and confirm that pair of black ground wires is going to the other half of the door plunger. Then tell us what happened.

Oh, and here's the wiring diagram of the interior lighting in case you weren't having enough fun already...

Door & interior lighting.jpg

[DeLoreanDMC81]

So I've tried every wire so far with the doors, and have had no luck at all. So I'm really stumped on the issue. I've made sure the bulbs aren't blown. So I'm not sure what else to try, other than hooking the wires directly to the battery.

On a positive note, I figured out what was wrong with my windows! I took the door panels off and removed the window motor and this is what I found.

I got everything cleaned up and the motor works great! The gears inside the the window lift mechanism are a different story. I've done everything to clean them up but it just feels like there is just a bunch of built of gunk still in there. Anyone have any luck taking the side pieces of plastic off, to get in there to the gears?

Also, anyone know where to find one of those spiral felt/metal pieces, the part that actually raises and lowers the window? My old '86 Jeep Cherokee has something darn similar for the windows, but I just don't know what that piece is called? (I've included a picture of it as well)

Thanks everyone!

James
2168 & 6408

[DMC5180]

Well, you’ve dug into something that most of us just throw out and replace with new heavy duty actuators. I’ve never heard of any of the replacement actuators ever failing. Window lift parts aren’t generally sold separately anywhere that I know of beyond motors.


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[DeLoreanDMC81]

Hot diggity dog I finally did it, I finally figured out my door wiring issue! I was just messing around earlier with it and I just happened to hook up the correct wires and, bam, the lights came on.

I'm just super happy. It's just exciting to know that my lights now work, and that I figured out why my window wasn't working.

Slowly I'm getting this car back into shape. Now, did I ever happen to mention how much I can't stand previous owners? Especially ones that don't have a clue what they are doing or how to take care of things.

James
2168 & 6408

[DeLoreanDMC81]

Well, you’ve dug into something that most of us just throw out and replace with new heavy duty actuators. I’ve never heard of any of the replacement actuators ever failing. Window lift parts aren’t generally sold separately anywhere that I know of beyond motors.


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I guess you can go ahead and call me crazy because I went ahead and tore apart the whole window mechanism. lol

I went ahead and popped off the plastic cover and found that the main drive gear was cracked. It's funny, that tiny crack was just enough to shift the gears to where the motor couldn't turn it properly.

So I went ahead and used a Dremel to grind a few of the gears. Now everything works perfectly!

I don't know how long it will hold up before it permanently breaks, but at least I saved myself a few hundred bucks for right now. lol

[SS Spoiler]

I had a similar problem 25 years ago on
the passenger side. the window would only
move about two inches and quit. I open up
the gear motor box and found, you guessed
it, a cracked gear. Remover the gear, super
glued the crack, clamped a hose clamp to
pull it in, then carefully drilled the shaft hole
so it would slide back on and super glued it
on. Still running great......

[David T]

The window actuators were an early problem so right away vendors came up with replacements for the whole thing. Because of the effort to get at it it is probably best to just replace it with a much more robust replacement. If you are on a budget patching it up is the way to go but don't expect it to last. Baby the windows, ie, don't run it till it stops. When it is all the way open or all the way closed release the switch.