88 suburban power windows slow

[Arodsbowtie]

Hello everyone I am getting this 88 suburban running again after it sat for 6 years. It has 84,000 miles remains untouched. The driver side front window goes down about halfway then real slow to come up and the passenger rear goes down and back up but the others barely budged and power locks weren't moving either I didn't wanna mess anything up more so I stopped.

Can someone please point me in the right direction to get these windows and power locks to work as they should?

 

[Vbb199]

Window motors might be dying. Common squarebody power window issue.

The ones that arent rolling down might have their track dirty and loaded up with debris, the wheels might be damaged, or the physical steel arms could be rusted together? All kinds of issues possible.

 

[Matt69olds]

Pull off the door panels for a inspection of the regulators. Chances are the grease has long ago stopped being grease and is more like paste. A little bit of lithium grease might get things moving again.

More likely is voltage drop in the wiring, or defective motors. I’m not familiar with power window wire colors for your vehicle, so your going to have to inspect for yourself. Find the wires that go to each motor. One wire will be positive, the other negitive. To reverse the motor direction, the polarity is reversed. Put the positive probe of your volt meter on the positive post of the battery. Put the negative probe of your meter on one of the motor wires. Run the window up/down, whatever the meter reads is how much voltage is being lost in the wiring. Run the test on the other wire (except put the meter probe on the negitive battery cable post). Once again, whatever the meter reads Is voltage lost.

If it’s more than a volt or 2 (at the most) then the problem is most likely dirty switch contacts, broken or poorly repaired wiring in the door jamb, etc. The best fix is to use relays, it’s been discussed on here before.

I did the relay conversion years ago in my 81 GMC, the windows work great and fast. It’s labor intensive but worth it.

 

[Arodsbowtie]

Thank you both for your reply. I'm gonna go out tomorrow and pull the door panels see what's goin on in there thank you guys for your help.

 

[Powerhouse Ranch]

As we revisit this thread a year later, i TOO am having power window issues on my '88 parts Burb. Now all of the windows will slowly try to go down, haven't really forced any to go further. Put them back up. SO THEY DO KINDA WORK. Now the rear window, different story. Unlike my trusty Jimmy with the manual crank handle, this POS is power also. Some of you may like it, i don't. For EXACTLY this purpose.

Now this thing has sat for years, and i mean years. It has kept decent, some would even try to drive it as is. Unfortunately it has NO frame. I mean it's there, but it isn't haha. @AuroraGirl 's truck has more metal on her truck bed than i do my frame! All jokes aside, i needed to get the tailgate down; obviously have to lower the window first. Starts to go, then it slows. Then my brother grabs a hold of it and forces it down with key opening it too. I wasn't mad about it then, it was quite helpful actually. So it goes home, tailgate comes down with a little bit of persuasion. Did what i needed to do, put gate back up. Go to do the window, NOPE. No response. No sound. No nothing.

So the power windows do work, slightly. Is the rear window on same harness? Read up in another thread about the ground bus bar above the parking brake pedal, i couldn't find one in my truck. I heard there is a relay too, didn't quite find that at quick glance either. Then again it's like 10 degrees and the truck is outside and i didn't have a flashlight at the time. Track is clean. Tried forcing it up, that's not going to work obviously. I guess the motor might have died? Then again it is behind the glass that is down IN the tailgate. Can't really get to that. This is a parts truck. Everytime i go to do something with it it just pisses me off causes yet another problem. Until i get it in the new shop with more equipment and LIGHT, i need to figure out how to get this dang window up. Any ideas?

And sorry for the jab @AuroraGirl , but it is actually true

Pictures below are from the day i got it. Just for a little reference. I know we all like pictures haha

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[AuroraGirl]

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This is the one thing on my truck SPOTless. the IP ground LOL

also not a jab if its 1) true 2) not my fault its rusty 3) i also were to refute that

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You could say I professionally do body work LOl

 

[Powerhouse Ranch]

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This is the one thing on my truck SPOTless. the IP ground LOL

also not a jab if its 1) true 2) not my fault its rusty 3) i also were to refute that

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You could say I professionally do body work LOl

So that's my ground then? alright i have one of those and it's the condition of yours

 

[AuroraGirl]

So that's my ground then? alright i have one of those and it's the condition of yours

check the things by pulling off, they could corrode from fretting or whatevr/. But its your IP ground, yes, but your IP ground itself is bolted to the cab which is bolted to the frame and the fenders which those are cabled to the battery negative, those being interupted could causue issues e specially in a power motor circuit FAR back in the vehicle(idk where that motor grounds to but its a high amp circuit far from home on the ground aspect)

 

[Powerhouse Ranch]

check the things by pulling off, they could corrode from fretting or whatevr/. But its your IP ground, yes, but your IP ground itself is bolted to the cab which is bolted to the frame and the fenders which those are cabled to the battery negative, those being interupted could causue issues e specially in a power motor circuit FAR back in the vehicle(idk where that motor grounds to but its a high amp circuit far from home on the ground aspect)

Since this is a parts truck, could i hypothetically run a direct ground from the IP to the negative terminal on the battery?

 

[AuroraGirl]

Yes. infact, you can do it in your main truck. just dont stack a ground over it like one running from a window regulator.I would, frankly, just run it to frame and then make your frame to battery ground, which is like 3, 4 feet right, really good and proper good gauge. itas been working ofr your fuel sender and tail lights. I say upgrade because those over time havent proven to be the best done

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look on the lower right, the red and bare paint. that wire is the stock gauge to my understanding. Take an old side post 4-8 gauge or whatever gm Used, grind those stamps that grab a battery side post to flat and then Bolt it to the frame and then to the post. Thatll ground the ******.
I would avoid using the window regulators on the same frame rail or having a separate wire for the driver rail to the battery above the one that uses the regulators. Just ideas

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watch the time linked for a minute or so

 

[AuroraGirl]

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heres the takeaway at the part I hope you end up seeing
The PCM, hypothetically being on the same ground path as the switch for the window motor, would be disrupted in its fine activities by a large change in the current on the ground path . When not for engine management, its not AS big of a deal, but if its for interior things like gauges, lights, radio, weird things can probably happen and no need to make things confused.

Especially if the ground path is high resistance and alternative paths are being suddenly influxed with too much or grounding is not sufficient overall and you have wires fail or things get killed by the others. im guessing the window regulators used body grounds and the fender to battery and body to frame to battery and the firewall to engine to battery would handle the ground paths when needed but those power circuits were relaly the problem starting out more so

 

[dvdswan]

power window relay mod

I was wondering if someone could help me out. Im wanting to do the power window relay mod, my problem is im not positive on what wires to tap into and what not. could anyone help a brother out and let me know what wires do what and which ones i tap into. It would also be a huge help if you could...

www.gmsquarebody.com

 

[WP29P4A]

In my experience with slow power window issues, when the vehicle is from the 80's or older it usually isn't a single problem. It usually requires cleaning out all the debris and old dry grease and oil that has turned to goo, possibly replacing the felt in the verticle channels, rollers in the horizontal tracks. Some window motors have gear reduction with gears that are packed in grease that gets dry and hard over time. Any of these things individually will slow the window down, more than one makes it unbearably slow.

I usually pull everything out of the door shell so I can clean, rebuild, etc. Get the mechanism working properly before I replace the motor without knowing for sure if its that cause, because its the most expensive piece of the puzzle usually. (on Mopar it is) If the interior door panel shows signs of being wet in the past, switches are probably not at their best either. Its not a quick job, but well worth the effort if you like the power windows to work like new/normal.