Window motor fuse keeps blowing. No Ground. Damaged door harness wires

Maintenance/Repairs
1

Window motor fuse keeps blowing. No Ground. Damaged door harness wires.

1996 Honda Civic LX Sedan, 16 Valve SOHC

WIRING DIAGRAM: http://i.imgur.com/nHdUjEm.gif

FRONT PASSENGER WINDOW GOES UP BUT DOES NOT GO DOWN. FUSE NUMBER 10 KEEPS BLOWING.

So I took the door off and the looked at the harness, and lo and behold, the GREEN/BLACK and the RED/BLUE wires were bad. Soldered the GREEN/BLACK wire back together, and reconnected the RED/BLUE wire. That did nothing.

Back-probed the WHITE/BLUE wire (on the motor side, which is RED/BLUE on the connector side) and gave it ground. SUCCESS. The window actually goes down! But then the fuse keeps blowing. I’ve got an extra good motor and a regulator outside of the door, and it does the same thing, so I know it’s not binding linkage.

Maybe I’ve still got a bad ground where the RED/BLUE wire goes into the harness into the side of the door. It’s tough because it’s ripped out of the little wire socket place, not like a damaged wire that you can just solder. So I just try to poke it back in. Also tried sticking a sharp needle in there and then connecting the RED/BLUE wire to the needle, but still nothing.

YOU MAY STOP READING HERE AND SKIP THE FOLLOW PORTION. (Because I don’t know if it’s relevant or makes sense or something.)

Here’s the interesting part. If the temporary ground is connected, and I go up, the fuse blows. If I disconnect the ground, I can go up as much as I want with no problem. And if I want to go down, I reconnect the ground.

I think, and I could be wrong, that if with ground connected, I first go up, it’d be okay. But if I go the opposite direction, down, it’ll blow. Or if I first go down, it’d be okay, but if I then go up, it’ll blow. I’m not sure if I’m remember this correctly, but this could be the case. Maybe some magnetic reverse polarity something something magic going on? I have no idea what I’m doing.

2

Something is apparently drawing too current,is the fuse the correct amperage,does sound like there is a short somwhere ,can you fab a complete wiring loop for the window regulator? did you think maybe the switch might be bad? a bad ground can do some crazy things,you wouldnt believe some of the things that might happen if the current can find another path to ground-Kevin

3

The trouble isn’t due to a bad ground, it is due to a power wire making contact to ground.

I assume you are just having trouble with the window for the driver and the rest of the windows are working okay. I also assume that the fuse that is blowing out is No. 11 shown on the drawing. If those things are correct then you should only need to be concerned with wires tieing to pins B5 and B7. Both of those wires should be isolated from any connection to ground when those pins are removed from the master switch. You can use an ohmmeter on those pins while they are disconnected from the switch and check the resistance on each wire to ground. If one of the wires is touching ground you will get a reading on both wires if the motor is connected. The wire with the lowest reading to ground will be the one that is contacting ground. The trouble could very well be in the door jam area where I assume the broken wires were found.

4

Yes yes yes! The broken wires were in the harness in the door jam. But the window with the problem is the FRONT PASSENGER (caps for easy reference) and the No.10 fuse is the one that keeps blowing.

5

Well if the fuse only blows out when the switch for the window is moved using the driver control switches then you need to check the wires tied to pins B1 and B11. They shouldn’t connect to ground when removed from the master switch. From what you stated about the problem earlier the wire tied to B1 might be the one contacting ground. Those wires reverse polarity when the window changes direction. So if one side is grounded then things will seem ok if that is the side that makes connection to ground to complete the circuit. Using the other direction will send power on the grounded wire and you saw results when that happened. The fuse saved your wiring.

6

You need to remove the temporary ground and possibly consider that the problem is related to the switch; assuming there is no further wire harness fault.

The polarity of the motor will reverse depending upon whether up or down is selected with the red/blue becoming +or - as the case may be and the blue/white always becoming the opposite of the blue/red.

7

It looks like the motor runs on full battery voltage. Could you temporarily jumper from the battery around all the switches, with an in-line fuse and proper wire gauge for the current, isolate the motor from the rest of the wiring and the grounds, and see if the fuse blows then? You might could then get an idea of where the problem lies, with the motor, or with the wiring. I’ve done something like this before with a starter motor problem, when I wasn’t sure if the starter motor or the wiring was the problem.

8

Cougar I think you’re on to it. I’ll check wire B1, the BLUE/YELLOW wire. It seems that having the RED/BLUE (Oh is it the BLUE/RED? There are two of them!) disconnected doesn’t seem to affect anything pertaining to the FRONT PASSENGER window. Wish I could understand this. Why is it that when I ground the BLUE/RED, BLUE/YELLOW side that the motor works? Oh I guess that sort of vaguely makes sense in my dilapidated mind. I will check the BLUE/YELLOW wire!

And what in the world is the difference between BLUE/RED and RED/BLUE?! I’m sure the first color is the dominant one, but still, very confusing!

YOU MAY SKIP THE FOLLOWING NONSENSE.

(But remember that the GREEN/BLACK wire was frayed, and I did have to solder it, so it’s possible that it’s still bad. But if the GREEN/BLACK wire were open or had high resistance, what would happen? But it should be good because the window still goes up right, and that’s the only connection to power and the fuse. Obviously right? I am an idiot so please correct me if I’m wrong.)

(I’m very tempted to just head to the junkyard and replace the entire harness, but I don’t know how difficult it would be to replace the whole thing. Goes behind the glovebox and stuff and I don’t know. Even thought about replacing the entire door, lol, because I’m crazy, but that wouldn’t even fix the problem! Lol, if you throw enough parts at something, right? Let’s just replace the entire car besides the window and then the problem will be fixed.)

(I’ve also considered this! Anytime I want to roll the window down, I’ll connect a makeshift ground. Then anytime I want to roll it up, I’ll disconnect it! Haha I’m so sad and serious.)

9

If you trace-out the current path like a road map, that might be helpful to understand how it works. For example, when the Front Passenger’s window is switched to go UP, the current path from battery to ground goes as follows:

From the battery, through fuse 41, then fuse 46, then the power window relay, then fuse 10, then to via the green/black wire to pin 1 of the front pass’ers window switch, then to pin 4 of the same switch (b/c it is in the UP position), then blue/red to pin 1 of the motor, through the motor to pin 2, and back via Blue/White to pin 3 of the prior mentioned switch, then to pin 2 of the same switch (b/c that one is in the OFF position), then blue/orange to the switch labeled simply " Passengers", which switches (b/c that path is in the OFF position as the goal is for the window to go UP, not DOWN) that pathway goes to ground through the MAIN SWITCHm then via a black wire to ground “G551”.

If you do the same for the DOWN direction you’ll likely see the current will go through the motor in the opposite direction.

10

The first color is the dominant color followed by the tracer color.

As I tried to explain in my previous post you need to realize that the wires tieing to the switches and motors reverse polarity when the opposit direction for the window is selected. Looking at the drawing we see that when the window UP position is selected on the driver door switch the drawing shows that pin B1 will be tied positive 12 volts. Pin B11 will be tied ground at the same time in order to complete the circuit. If the fuse blows when that position is selected then the short has to be on pin B1 since that one is supposed to be tied to power. If the DOWN position was selected then the short to ground won’t seem to be there since that lead is then supposed to be tied to ground. The polarity is reversed.

11

I had a mechanic friend of mine come by. I think he’s found the problem but I haven’t repaired and tested yet. He found a bad wire on the driver’s side door harness as well. I would have never thought to look at that. So maybe that’s it. I’ll report back.