The Dark Wob

Have you done the quick test of earthing the sender wire at the tank end and watching the gauge?

Window motors from anything modern van or 4x4 should be upto the job I would have thought, unless they use special electricity in canbus flavours?

fried onions wrote: ↑Sat Dec 19, 2020 8:42 pm Have you done the quick test of earthing the sender wire at the tank end and watching the gauge?

Yes that was an early test.

I don't think (but can't be sure) that the slow operation of the electric windows is caused by a bad motor - I suspect that as they have been welded into place a little askew, the mechanism is jamming a bit.
I suppose the first step is to try and cut the motor off to see if it works OK then, and see how free the mechanism is.
Don't have much to lose as they are useless now.
Backup plan is to use the keep-fit window mechs from the spare car - but that's not original for my car.

Managed to detach the welded on motor unit by a combination of angle grinder and hacksaw.

As I suspected, progress of the quadrant thing wasn't smooth, but the motor runs fine under no load.

The mechanism incorporates a large spring - I assume to help the motor on the upward movement of the window. It looks to me as if the bad alignment actually makes the spring load up the whole setup and jam it on the upwards travel.

Then I had a terrible realisation. The hackers have used the toothed quadrant from whatever they got the motor off. And the toothed thing is welded (badly) onto the AMC original arm.
So nothing is straight - they have butchered the AMC motor mounting so that the new motor doesn't run truly parallel to the rest of it and the quadrant catches on it.

I have a spare mx5 window motor if you'd like me to post it out.

paulplom wrote: ↑Mon Dec 21, 2020 7:24 am I have a spare mx5 window motor if you'd like me to post it out.

Very kind thanks but the motor is OK - it’s all about the alignment I think.

I tried a couple of possible locations for the rev counter - undecided.

Boo on the strawberry juice.
By the way, don't use too much. It needs a tiny tiny amount. I normally just tip the bottle up enough so the end of the needle drops a bit on the contact then use the side of it to spread it around a little.