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Auto Up\Down Modules - Finally complete and Awesome!

Booba5185

New member
Hey everyone,
In this write-up, I'll be showing you how to add an auto up, auto down, and auto up\down to your power windows. This principle can be applied to power seats, moon roofs, basically any reversible DC motor. In my case, I want auto up and auto down for my front windows, and only auto down for my rear windows (kids). This is actually a very simple and cheap mod, junkyards are your friends.
In the mid 90s, Ford used a one-touch module to enable their driver windows to roll down. These modules were mounted in the driver side door, normally on the door itself, sometimes on the door panel. They are pretty hard to miss. From what I have read, they came in 92-95 Ford Taurus's, Crown Vics, Mustangs, Exploders, Mountaineers, Town Cars, just to name a few. Wander the Ford section of the junkyard and rip off door panels, you will find some.
As far as tools are concerned, you'll need to remove the doors panels, cut\splice wires, and mount the modules. Use whatever tools you need to do those things.
Here's what the modules look like, I made a JY trip and bought some other things, but the modules are in a row of 5. You need one module for each "auto" operation. So in my case, I wanted auto up on the driver (1 module), Auto up\down on the passenger (2 modules), and auto down on the rear doors (2 modules).
p1050160.jpg

As far as wiring is concerned, they all have 5 wires leading to them. So far, every car has had different colors wires. SInce there is no common ground on wire colors, we are forced to resort to wire numbers. Each module has 5 pins, and if you unplug the harness, you will see that the numbers 1-5 are marked above the pins on the module. We'll start with adding auto up to the driver side. Here's the simplest pinout:
Pin 1: Direction output to motor
Pin 2: Direction input to module
Pin 3: +12v
Pin 4: Opposite direction (cancel)
Pin 5: Ground
Before I start explaining everything, it is important to understand one thing. Our window motors have 2 wires going to them, dark blue and brown. When the window is going DOWN, the brown wire gets +12V, when going up, the dark blue wire get's +12v. Get it? Good.
So Pin 3 and 5 are obivous, they provide the unit with power and ground. Connect pin 5 to anything metal, BOOM, you are 20% done with your wiring. Pin 3 will go to the yellow wire coming out of the window switch on the driver side (Pin 3 will change for the passenger and rear doors, more on this later). The way to figure out what to connect to pin 2 is to ask yourself, "Self, which way do I want this window to automatically roll?" If your answer is "Up", pin 2 gets connected to the "Up" (Dark Blue) wire. If your answer is "down", pin 2 gets connected to the "down" (Brown) wire. Since I'm showing you auto up right now, We'll say the answer is "up". Since Pin 2 gets connected to the Dark Blue wire, I unplugged the motor, and cut the blue wire about 4 inches from the plug. I connected the dark blue wire coming from the window switch to the wire that leads to pin 2. Next up is pin 1. Pin 1 in the output to motor for the direction you are rolling. This pin connects to other side of the wire you just cut. Dark blue wire leading to the motor was connected to pin 1. Pin 4 splices into the opposite direction's +12v, the Brown wire. This wire taps into the existing connection, so the brown wire still connects directly to the motor, I just had to splice this wire into it. Confused? Here's a pretty picture:
driver_side_778105.png

Passenger side and rear doors are a bit more difficult because the +12v wire leading to the window switches (pin 3) is no longer yellow. It is now...you guessed it...dark blue. So now you have to determine which dark blue wire leads to the motor and which blue wire is the +12v. This is important so take a deep breath and pay attention:
For the rear doors the Blue wire labeled "B" on the window switch connector leads to the motor, the dark blue wire labeled "D" on the connector leads to +12V.
For the Passenger connector I don't remember, I'll have to pull my door panel off and take a pic to see, or you could use a multimeter to check for continuity with the dark blue wire leading to the motor.
Passenger side is a bit harder to explain, so I'll let the picture do most of the talking. Remember, what ever direction goes into pin 2 comes back out of Pin 1 to the motor.
passenger_door.jpg

For the rear doors, it's basically the same as the front driver doors, except you swap the Brown and Dark Blue Wires. By that I mean you cut the brown wire, connect the harness side to pin 2 and the motor side to pin 1. Then splice pin 4 in the dark blue wire. Pic:
rear_doors_324158.jpg

Sounds easy enough and makes sense-ish right? Time to get to work outside. I started on the rear doors first, then did the front passenger, and then front driver. Here's a pic of the Rear door:
p1050173.jpg

I pulled a switch out of one of the door panels for testing purposes. In this pic you can see where I mounted the module itself. See the black ziptie? It's holding the module in place on the inside of the door:
p1050174.jpg

Here's the Passenger side, I'll get more pics when I pull it apart again. I mounted them to the upper right a bit from where they are sitting in this pic, but I should have mounted them right where they are, but on the other side of the sheet metal. I'll probably move them when I take it apart for pics:
p1050180.jpg

I haven't installed the driver side yet, that is happening later tonight! More pics for better detail to come!
 
Last edited:


Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

Okay so here's the driver side, I took a BUNCH of pics, so it should help with the install on the other doors.
So here we go, motor plug with the dark blue and brown wires:
p1050186.jpg

Remember since this is the driver door we're adding the auto UP feature, so we cut the dark blue wire. If you were adding the auto DOWN feature, you would perform these steps to the BROWN wire.
Cut the dark blue wire and strip the ends:
p1050187.jpg

Connect the HARNESS side of the dark blue wire to pin 2 of the module:
p1050189.jpg

Connect pin 1 of the module to the dark blue wire going to the motor connector, no pic, but you will see it later.
Connect pin 4 for the module to the brown wire (If you were adding auto DOWN, you'd be doing this to the dark blue wire) of the motor, the brown wire is still connected to the motor, the pin 4 wire just taps into the wire:
p1050192.jpg

Then you should have 3 of the 5 wires running to the module connected, Pin 1,2, and 4:
p1050194.jpg

All that's left now is power and ground. This is the yellow wire that supplies the +12v to the power windows, and will supply the +12v to the module:
p1050185.jpg

You have to tap into it just like we did with the brown wire above, and I chose to tap into it closer to the door instead of closer to the switch plug. This way there is les wire run to the module, and you don't have to worry about the plug reaching the window switch on the door panel. Here's the splice, before soldering:
p1050196.jpg

Then connect pin 5 to ground, and connect everything up for a test run:
p1050200.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJIpzJ7pick
Once you know it all works as planned, wrap up all wires so they don't get caught up in the window, and find somewhere to mount the module. Here's a pic of mine, you can also see the grounding spot I used...the module is the blue box you can barely see on the slight left:
p1050205.jpg

Now go ahead and put it all back together, you're done! I still have to pull the passenger side back out, but I'm out of zip ties to mount the modules so it'll wait a day or 2.
 
Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

during auto up...does the module sense a obstruction in the window path and automatically go back down before crushing a larynx?
 
Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

Thanks!

As an update, everything has been working great, no problems whatsoever. I've decided to modify the setup a bit. I think I'm going to go ahead and add auto-up to the rears, and I'm going to run a 12 AWG wire from yellow wire in the driver side door to the passenger side and rear doors. In the front passenger door I'll cut the dark blue wire going to the window switch and connect it to the 12 AWG wire. This will allow the window to work if the Lock-out button is pushed or not. Kids ride in the back, wife in the front, she's allowed to use the window when she wants. For the back doors, I'll connect the 12 AWG wire to the one-touch modules. This will allow me to be able to use the auto up\down function if the lock-out button is pushed or not. I might step it up to a a 10 AWG wire, but who knows.

After that, or probably at the same time, I'll be adding a one-touch module to the moon roof, so it will have an auto-close function.
 
Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

Nice.. Bonnevilles 92-99 also have the modules, in case you wanted a GM part vs the Ford one. Heck..I think I still have a couple laying around from doing it on my Bonne as well.
 


Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

Sorry for digging this back up, but I was wondering.. I have auto down factory in my Bonne in the front windows. I would love to have auto up, but what if my window is all the way down and I want to close it half way. Would I have to hit the up switch and then lightly tap the down switch when it gets to where I want it?
 
Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

On the driver side, you can tap either direction, since the driver side has a 2 stage switch (down and auto-down). As long as you hit down (and not auto-down) or up, it'll stop. If you have added auto up and auto down to the passenger or rear doors, you'd have to tap the same direction you are going to stop it.
 
Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

Hmmm this doesn't seem too bad, I wonder if I could adapt this another car.
 
Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

You can adapt it to any reversible +12v DC motor, power seats, windows, sun roofs, whatever you can think of.
 


Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

Sweet I think I can use this info to close my sunroof when I lock my doors, I forget to close my sunroof sometimes.
 
Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

I'm definitely doing this to the passenger side on my GTP coupe! Thanks
 
Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

Glad to help, if you want to take it another step, run a dedicated +12v wire into the doors, so the modules have power all the time. That way the windows will finish what they are doing after you open the door. Kinda hard to explain, but the windows loose power when you open the doors after you shut the car off. If the one touch modules have power all the time, the windows will finish rolling up even after the window switches loose power.

If the modules have power all the time you can also tie them into a security system and have you windows roll up every time you arm your alarm. I'm still doing this to my car, so no pictures yet, lol. I can explain it to you if you want.
 
Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

sub'd for reference. I know this sort of stuff takes time and a lot of knowledge so thanks for such a detailed write up!
 
Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

Yea I'd love to know that info man! That's actually really helpful because when have the car off or remote start running I can use the windows.. I just gotta find those modules from something
 


Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

Most anything from the era of the Jurrassic Park Explorers will have them. For the alarm stuff, you'll need 1 5 pin relay per window, per direction. Look in my build thread, I have some schematics drawn up, and I already have all my relays wired up...it's just been like 25*F outside so I don't feel like installing...let alone rolling my windows down.
 
Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

Yea man I hear that it's cold as hell out lol I wasn't gonna so this till it gets warmer so take your time it's all good! And junkyards around me in NY don't let you pick n pull you have to ask for a part and something like that is probably like 40$ each.. I need to travel a bit into Jersey and get to a pick and pull I've wanted to go to for a long time
 
Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

If you don't track them down by the time it gets warmer PM me and I'll get you some on one of my runs.
 
Re: Auto Up\Down Modules --- Work in Progress

Thanks man I will probably end up asking you lol I only need 1 anyways
 
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