The power window on the driver's side goes up, will not go down.. passenger side is fine.. appears to be intermittent (it will work one day, but most days it will not). What I have done so far, no help:
- cleaned switch contacts (they were clean to begin with)
- pulled door panel, reversed leads to the motor and verified that the window will go down (when pushing the UP button), so motor is good
- swapped auto-down relay #4 with another one (there are several others in that panel).
- disconnected battery for a few mins.

I have a Haynes book, but the wiring diagram is not really useful. There seems to be something called a GEM involved, I have no idea where that is or what it looks like. I have tried wiggling all the wiring I can find, no help. Does anyone know where I can get a decent wiring diagram? Is it possible to bypass this GEM thing somehow, or the auto-down relay, to isolate the problem? I assume this GEM is a dealer item and is expensive? I don't want to replace it unless I can confirm it is bad...

 

The down and OTD functions are 2 positions on the switch.

You have not indicated if you tested the switch ( only cleaned it, and tested the up section again by reversing the leads on the motor ).

Use a meter to see if you get power from the switch on the Tan w/ Light Blue wire from the driver's side switch, when you press the down function ( not the OTD function ).

 

Yes, I measure 12V on that tan/lt blue wire when pressing the down button for one click (which I assume is down, not the Auto function). I did some more digging and I see that the GEM is buried up underneath the dash, piggybacked onto the Fuse panel. If that tan/lt blue wire feeds that, I could measure at the GEM connector end if I know which wire/pin it is (same color?)... Maybe I have a broken wire buried in the harness that goes between the door and the GEM...

 

The diagram I have is marked as pin 8 on connector C267

don't know if this will help with ID'ing stuff
Right click save as :

http://my.voyager.net/~sscully/1997F...stallation.pdf

BTW : Have you had a lot of rain as of late ??

If so, this could be the cause, if your windshield ( or ~ 15% of the issue is a leaking moon roof ) is leaking and soaked the GEM

 

Thanks for the diagram.. We have had silly amounts of rain with Hurricane Irene and TS Lee lately...
I think I will try this:
- disconnect the 2-wire motor connector.
- tie the white/black wire together.
- Place a jumper wire from the switch output (tan/lt blue) directly to the orange/white wire going to the motor.
- press the down button and see if it works.

If this works, I think this proves the problem is either in the wiring harnesses (between the switch, the GEM, and the fuse panel under the hood), or the GEM itself.. Then I guess the next step is to pull the GEM out to expose the connectors and see if it got wet, and start trying to ohm out all the wiring.

 

If youy can try drying out the interior of the truck. Some will close the truck up and run a small space heater ( soaked GEM posts ). Just a thought fropm other posts that members have posted.

 

I'm throwing this back up because I'm having exactly the same issue in my 01 XLT extended cab:

Drivers side window will not go down, but I can hear the relay clicking away when I push the window down button. This must mean that my window switch is OK (?). Up works fine. Passenger side works fine. I drilled out the motor, and hooked it up to a battery and verified that I could get it to spin in either direction via changing polarity.

I don't know what else to check here. I could just go out and start buying a new motor, switch, and relay, but I can't seem to verify that any of those components are bad. I saw slfalco's plan to check the GEM module, but can someone confirm that a bad GEM module would give these drivers side window problems? It looks like the GEM controls many things, and I'm not having a problem with anything besides the drivers side window going down.

Thanks for any help.

 

Not too sure what you means by drilled out the motor. This thread ?:

https://www.f150online.com/forums/el...dow-motor.html

You might have banged the motor around enough to make it work again ( ala the tire thump in the thread linked above ), so it might work again.

Have you put it back in and tried it in the truck ?

 

Yeah - I drilled out the door panel and removed the motor for testing - sorry for the confusion.

- The window motor spins freely in both directions when removed from truck and connected directly to the battery. (checked each direction by reversing polarity on battery)
- When the drivers side window up/down switch is actuated, the motor will spin in the "up" direction fine, but will not spin down - but relay #4 will click each time the down button is pressed.
- No voltage is detected at the junction just prior to the motor when button pushed down, but reads fine (14v) when pressed up.
- Using a jumper wire into the switch junction box (thus bypassing the switch completely), I can actuate the window "up", but "down" again only toggles the relay, but doesn't budge the window.
-Swapped relay #4 with relay #5, made no difference.

So as I see it - I've ruled out the switch, motor, and relay. What gives? Does that damn GEM module control any of this?
Thanks again for any help.

 

Not real sure how you are ruling out the relay, you are not getting power when you press down.

a clicking relay does not mean a working relay.

What relays are you changing and why ?

 

I'm swapping relay #4 with relay #5 - same p/n. Relay #5 is the ACC delay relay, and although I don't know what exactly that is, everything else in the truck seems to work.

Does anyone know if this is tied to the GEM module? I guess I've got it in my head that there's more to this than the switch, motor, and relay, but if that's not the case I'll spring for a new relay.

 

Yes it is tied to the GEM.

 

Well, thanks for hanging around in on this thread SSCULLY.

I think I've resigned myself to putting everything back together and driving it with a window stuck closed for awhile. It does rain about every damn day lately in upstate NY, but I'll park the truck in the garage for a few days and maybe throw a light heat gun on the fuse panel/GEM module to see if I can dry it out. It does seem like if it was the GEM, that I'd have a lot more problems than just the drivers side window down switch not working.

I did find this article on replacing the GEM in a 97: http://www.sparkys-answers.com/2009/...le-window.html , so if things don't work out after I dry out the module and double check the switch functionality, maybe I'll pull out the GEM and see what she looks like.

 

Problem solved!

Went to the junkyard today and picked up a $10 window switch from a 98 F150. Popped into my truck and both windows work like a champ (the pass window up/down is reversed...but I could care less.)

Even tho my original switch looked fine, pins were clean, and it trippped the OTD relay thus acting like it was making good contact, there's obviously something buggered up internally.

My advice to the OP would be to try a new window switch. The GEM module controls so many other things besides just the windows that it's likely that you'd see other failures if the GEM module failed.

Thanks to sscully for being the only guy on this board to respond.