Technical '50's gm power window help please

wifes 56 Coupe Deville.....windows worked when i began the rebuild so tracks and motors are good...they did have intermittent problems which i figgr'd was a poor ground or connection but didnt look....i rewired the car and cut all the old crap out....i did leave the complete pigtail coming from the 4 way switch thru the door to the kick panel......now i cant figure out how to rewire them and here's my basic questions....1. do the switch and the motor ground when bolted in? 2. there are only two wires going to the motor, what fires the motor up and down? 3. on the pigtail from the switch i cut, only the "down" wires are there, where are the "up" wires"?

 

The switch does both power and ground
Up you get neg and positive on 2 pins
Then down
The neg and positive get reversed

see your master switch a lot of times the switches are wired in series
So if they are not all connected nothing works

sounds like you need a wiring diagram

 

yes...think i do....cause nothing works....i tried to make the motor at least work without the switch, nope, burnt my finger tho

 

I think the motor looks something like this ?



If so, they are the same as Buick/Olds and maybe Pontiac. I believe that the motor earths through the door, one wire for up, the other for down, certainly the ones I have on the bench here work that way.

I believe that the mounting and gearing is the same as motors that Gm used through in to the 70s, so you should be able to take motors from a camaro/firebird/whatever and they will bolt in.

 

I believe Crafty is correct, you should be able to make it work by grounding the motor itself and applying power to one wire for up, the other for down. Don't ground either wire. GM did go to the switching method VANDENPLAS mentioned sometime later, 70's or 80's I think.

 

Best I can do is 1958, but should be real close.

 

Back when the earth was green I worked on a 57 Barritz that someone tried to get the windows to work, all the wiring was disconnected, I wish I had the internet back then. It turned out that most of the problems were the terminals and connector on the switches. Be careful with the master switch and the polarity of the wires.

 

thanks for the comments and especially the diagram....mine is exactly like that.....what manual has that, i'm bettin it has some explanaation of flow and tips along w the rest of the diagram describing what the wires go to that come out of the door jam and conect to the master switch or circuit breaker....my 56 has zero factory wires or electricals.....it came out of a field and i redid it all