1964 T-Bird Electric Windows Stopped Working

[TurquoiseBird]

Hello, the electric windows suddenly stopped working- push buttons and nothing goes up or down. We checked the breaker and it has power on both sides- so probably fine. We cannot find a "window safety relay" under the hood- probably bypassed by prior owner. The windows normally work without the ignition key on or on accessory. How do we find the ground ? or check the wiring to the switches in the console ? Any help is greatly appreciated !!

[RAVEN]

You say you did not locate the window relay. Did you find the wiring harness FOR the relay? It is located low down on the firewall below the Pass side hood hinge. It tends to be hidden by the cowl vent drain boot. In days past, a person could have the unit by-passed, but in doing so, you had to still get at the relay point.
I would verify that connection first before going further.

[64thunderbird64]

The power window relay is the relay on the Firewall. I believe it is on the passenger side on a 1964 but not positive. it is on the firewall for sure though.

a lot of times if you have the skills you can clean the contacts on the relay and it will fix the issue. Or you can buy a new one from any of the Thunderbird part suppliers.

[paulr]

We cannot find a "window safety relay" under the hood- probably bypassed by prior owner. The windows normally work without the ignition key on or on accessory. How do we find the ground ?

Each window is individually grounded, and the switches and motors are grounded through the circuit.
The relay should be located as RAVEN described its location, if it's not deleted; look under that boot. The windows by factory design should not work until the key is in ON or ACC position. Your circuit is hacked. A schematic and Osborn Electric Assembly manual will show you what is supposed to be there and you can compare it to what's there and make corrections. Usually, people hack their wiring to fix, in their minds, some problem via short cut mentality, as opposed to a proper repair. This leads eventually to system failure. If you simply have a failed relay, that can be replaced, but other problems may still exist. The more you discover the more we can help with.

[Terry64HT]

If you start replacing wiring, be aware that the ground wires for each motor contain a resistor. The values are on the wiring diagrams.
This is so the motor will slow down near the end of it's travel to minimize it slamming into the stop.
Terry
64HT

[RAVEN]

Motor speed modulation, due to resistance, in non stepping motors, of constant voltage?????
Terri can you explain.

[Terry64HT]

This is an explanation I received from a long-time Ford guy several years ago. As yet another example of their quirky ways of doing things back then, they put a resistance in the ground wire for the window motors. If the motor was operated to partially open or close the window it did not run long enough for the characteristics of the ground wire to change. But if the motor was run so that the window travelled the full amount, the resistor would impede the operation near the end of the run, so that the window didn't slam against the stop. In effect the increased resistance acted like a poor ground connection.
It made sense to me, but I'm always willing to be corrected. These cars are a constant learning experience.
Terry
64HT

[paulr]

I looked for a while, but failed to find the discussion. This has been discussed several years ago by others. Anecdotally, there was talk about the U.S. Congress pressuring auto makers to slow down power window travel in the early 60s, and this specific method was considered as an approach by Ford.
I said anecdotally. Be nice, or

[RAVEN]

OK Terry, I follow the method of function, the resistor acts as a thermistor. I know that its function is used in the low fuel light system, but never thought of it being used for window speed regulation. Interesting.

NOTE; we is way off topic here, NOW back to why does this poor fellows windows do not work! Sorry Turquoise Bird

Have you found the Safety Relay yet or its wiring harness? Lets start over.

[RedBird64]

Those are simple current limiting resistors (sorry, they don't detect heat) and have two jobs. They keep the windows from being guillotines and when the window stalls at the top or bottom of its movement, no damage is done to the motor because of the limited current avail.