Window Relay 363 contact cleaning.

[UrS4boy]

Great write-up Eric. Definitely should be stickied.

[Pearl White Rob]

Relay

Wondering whether this might be my problem... very occasionally both windows and the sunroof won't work. Then the next time they all will!

Think this is the culprit?

Rob

[mac2226]

Can someone tell me where the window relay is located? Thanks

Remove the lower shelf below steering wheel and look up it should be next to other relays and fuses

[DeanG]

Can someone tell me where the window relay is located? Thanks

[S2central.net]

Afaik the 1TWU / D only applies to driver side window

[Kroegarn]

Excellent write up
....with the one touch up/down function....

+1

But another question:

Is there a relay with up/down functionality and for more than the driver side window?

[mcandmar]

Excellent write up

I've attached a pic of the earlier units with the one touch up/down function. They have three relays inside but are sandwedged together making this job a little more difficult.

[irishs2]

One of the tips I got when my electric windows stopped working, was to take out the relay and tap it on the ground, sure enough it got me out of a jam. I kinda knew I would have to deal with this problem again. So after the car being idle for the last 2 months, the relay started to give trouble again. So I set about to see if I could fix it.

Now there are may causes to electric window failure, from door switches, to temperature sensitive failure http://www.s2forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31479 , motor and regulator failure and this here relay trouble.





My Culprit.


The cover comes off very easily, only two flat blades needed on either side and it pops off.



Both relay contacts need to be cleaned



All those larger solder joints could do do with a retouch of the soldering iron.



Some basic tools, Feeler gauge, 800 wet dry, and a wire core cable tie. Kinda harking back to the day of cleaning ignition points .



These springs are very small, and require very little effort to pop them off the contacts.



We need to get that hinged contact out.


The conductor wire was very tight so I snipped a tiny bit off the support at the top, and filed it down so as not to cut the wire.


Slide the wire over the top of the support and unhinge the contact.




Nothing bad here, just a little pitting.



Very noticable burning here.



Using the feeler gauge as support for the sandpaper, file away the burn and pits in as flat as possible.




Now doing the same to the other relay. The wire conductor is long enough to go over the top of the hinge support so no need to cut anything here. Remove the hinged contact in much the same way as the earlier one.


Here we go. Very definite burning and pitting. The material is quite soft, it doesn't take too much pressure for the 800 paper to do its thing.




This contact has a back and front just make sure both sides are clean



Again very visible pitting. All of these bad contacts can cause heat buildup and melt the plastic support. Thankfully that has not happened here.




Nice clean flat contact patch. It would do no harm to spray these contacts with a little contact cleaner after filing.




Mine also had started to develop a crack in the solder, so all the of the big solder joints got touched and reflowed with the soldering iron.