Power window fix

[MrStabby]

I've been having trouble with intermittent and broken power windows on the R32. Using the information from https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/291360-power-window-stuck-electric-window/?do=findComment&comment=4878899

I found that: most of the problems were resolved by cleaning the switches, the last issue was fixed by re-soldering the relay in the "amplifier". Also the drivers side switch can be opened and fixed too.

So, the drivers switch internals;

As you can see it has the same problem as the passenger switch shown in the post linked above. That post says "10) STOP! dont try to pry apart the circuit board any further.. as you will break it.. if you look at this picture you can see that due to this whole assembly being screwed down THEN soldered in the nissan factory.. its not possible to remove this, so i just sprayed the cleaner as much as possible inside and re-assembeled everything, i suppose if it got really broken in there you could cut the circuit board to remove those 2 tiny little screws you see in the pic and get in there"

I eventually managed to get the assembly apart by removing the screws (the circuit board untouched) then flexing the black plastic. However there was some damage;

Perhaps you will have better luck. Anyway that break is not bad enough to cause issues and since the swtich was not usable anyway i figured i had nothing to loose.

So after clean up;

And, similar to what i found on the passenger side, the switch contacts were badly pitted;

So i reversed the orientation of these pieces before reinstalling them, hoping that may help them last a little longer.

Now putting the pieces in place;

And then carefully lowering the cap back onto the switch, making sure the switch lever points sit in the valleys before pushing it together. The tabs click into place and i left the screws out as the switch is very solidly mounted without them, and they would be very difficult to get back in.

After all that, I still had intermittent operation of down on the drivers side window. Up always worked, and up and down always worked on the passenger side. I found that the issue was due to dry joints on the surface mounted relay in what Nissan calls the "power window amplifier". This is a black box mounted under the door trim, occupying the space under the elbow rest/shelf/whatever that's called. Its attached by a metal bracket with two screws into the door shell.

To get inside the box, I put some sandpaper on a flat surface then wore away one long edge and the short edge opposite the plug end. The plug end is not bonded to the cap in that end, so now we have three sides of the box that are "free" and can then flex the side open. Sorry - should have taken photos. Once open there is a single circuit board with two surface mounted relays (that is, the relays are soldered directly onto the board). I noticed that two of the joints appeared to have a little carbon around them. From the service manual, the amplifier pin out is;

To operate the relays, apply +12v to pin 4, then connect ground to 1 and 2 to drive the relays. The intermittent operation occurred on the relay with the carboned up joints, and those joints didn't look like they'd been soldered well (they should look concave). I applied heat to the solder joints to have the solder re-flow onto the relay pin and board run. Re-checked them by applying voltage and they were now working well.

 

If you want to multimeter test the drivers side switch, facing the switch and labelling pins as

Drivers window;

1 & 2 - open circuit, connected on UP and AUTO UP

1 & 3 - open circuit, connected on DOWN and AUTO DOWN

1 & 4 - open circuit, connected on AUTO UP and AUTO DOWN

Passenger window;

1 & 7 - connected, open circuit on UP and DOWN

7 & 9 - connected, open circuit on UP

1 & 9 - connected, open circuit on DOWN