1973 Custom Cruiser

It figures. But I'm hoping that finding where the power wire splits into two won't be too difficult. I figure I'll just follow it along until it suddenly becomes two wires where it was one before. But as I say, this split might occur right at the switch or even inside the switch. It wouldn't make sense to split the wire any earlier, if you think about it. I may ultimately have to remove the rear key switch and take it apart or test it or whatever. It's just that the window part of the switch works so well that I can't believe that the reason that the tailgate won't work from here is because of the switch.

But, hey, one thing I've learned from working on this car and from working on cars in general is that nothing is ever as it seems, nothing ever works the first time, and any job, no matter how big or how small or how simple or how complicated it looks, always takes at least twice as long as you think it will!

 

Thanks, David, for the procedure and the brands. This will help!

 

I'm looking at the rust on the floors and wondering on the right side if something is leaking? Heater core or a/c evaporator drain or what?

If now there is no leak then fixing the rust will certainly be permanant.

 

It was probably the glass leaking. These had lousy bonding of the windshield to the opening...my 98 leaks like a sieve!

David

 

speaking of which I had the windshield in the wagon replaced 2 weeks ago, yesterday, heavy rain, a slow steady drop on the driver's mat. I am mat as a hatter.

 

I wondered about the rust, too, but it's on both sides, it's about equally rusty on both sides, and it's mostly surface rust. I'm thinking it could just be the result of many years of snowy boots or shoes and wet feet on rainy days. Also, the windshield has been replaced twice, according to the service records, so certainly rainwater could have gotten in if the seals weren't perfect. I don't see any evidence of a heater core leak.

The floor seems quite solid, so I'm assuming that cleaning it up and sealing it will make it good for many more years, particularly as I don't expect it to get much exposure to wet weather from here on out. It's a collector car now, so it lives in a garage and only gets driven on sunny days!

 

Why is your car even out IN the rain?!?!

 

the wagon is my daily driver, the garage is full of Oldsmobile, the storage garage is full of Oldsmobile, she knew the deal when she accepted the position

 

Ah, I didn't realize that.

 

1 year this week - end of 2008 had been a bad year, was not working, turned in the 2007 Acura lease and when I went back to work 2 weeks later, I bought the wagon. I never loved driving to work in the Acura, and it was a nice loaded TL Type S with nav and everything bluetooth etc. Love the wagon, never even think about the Acura, even on gas day (which is often)

 

here's the wiring diagrams

I thought I'd go ahead and scan the wiring diagrams of interest so you guys can see what I've been talking about. I apologize for the size of these things, but I thought that the only way to make them readable was to make them large.

The first scan shows the front wiring harness. In the lower left, you can see the "IGN RELAY", and you can see its connection to the accessory block which is on the far left and is that thing with two rows of five squares. If you follow the wiring in the direction to the right of where it joins the wiring harness, you can see it goes to the dashboard window motor switch (upper right) and window motor (upper, just right of center). There is no corresponding diagram that I can find that specifically shows the tailgate motor dash switch or motor.





The second scan shows the rear tailgate and window circuit diagram. At the very bottom the wires are coming from the harness assembly, and there are three of them with colors orange/black (the power wire), light blue, and tan/white from top to bottom. But if you look right at the corner where the wiring turns upward, the orange/black wire is shown as splitting into two, and TWO orange/black wires are shown as arriving at the key switch (the two in the middle of the six, each numbered "60-12"), which is shown at the top of the page. The window motor is shown to the left of the key switch, and the tailgate motor is shown below that with the wiring coming off of it going both to the key switch AND to the front of the car, both with the gray and purple wires that we've seen in David's photos.



It's from this second diagram that one concludes that the tailgate should operate just fine regardless of what's going on with the dash switch and the front of car wiring so long as power is reaching the rear of the car, which it apparently is because the window works.

By the way, in the far lower left, it says "TO DIV CONN". I'm sure CONN means connector, but I can't figure out what DIV is an abbreviation for. Dividend? Division? Divisor? Diving board? Anyone know? Thanks.

 

for what it's work, the power tail gate was an option, only the power window was standard. maybe there's more in the ACC section? Just a thought

 

This is true, but, on the other hand, lots of things were options (power windows, locks, sunroof, etc.), and there are diagrams for all of those. I would think the factory service manual would cover every possibility that an Oldsmobile service technician might come across.

I don't see another section in the book with more wiring diagrams. It wouldn't make much sense, anyway. After all, why not put the diagram where one would expect to find it? In the section labeled "Electrical" and where all the other wiring harness diagrams are!

 

My guess is that DIV means dividable or divided connector or passthrough from one part of the body to another, like the ones that go through the firewall to the engine compartment.

Referring to the bottom drawing. Circuit 60 is doubled up from the top connector to almost the bottom, where it's reduced to one 12 ga cable, from 2 12 gauge wires. Where there are two parallel wires, they must've been in the stock harness, ready for additional optional equipment to be connected or tapped into.

In your early 'accessory' block picture, you show one that's almost melted through. That melted length is in the top picture, where the relay is. If the relay is toast, than the 60 circuit is taking the load. But the reason its taking the load is because the relay's ground wasn't well secured. It was either loose or hanging unfastened. Usually on a major circuit like that, there'd be a black ground wire at least a 10 gauge with an eyelet attached to the relay mounting screw and then going to a convenient part of the body's sheetmetal, again with a serrated eyelet.

Since the original issues that the original owner was trying to sort out were likely caused by the bodyshop guys, I suspect that they didn't reinstall the proper ground cables, or not at all. Clean off where the relay goes back on down to bare metal before you install the new one, and add a short 10 gauge or even 8 gauge ground wire. I'll bet it was on the body part that they fixed or removed to fix.

Those big 12 gauge wires can take a lot of abuse, but to go so far as melting suggests that someone tried to put a couple of big Halogens or the electric motor(s) siezed up or not enough grounding.

It doesn't matter where you ground it, as long as its to the same body sheetmetal. The tailgate isn't the same body sheetmetal, so it needs a ground from the window motor to the body as does the gate power lock or solenoid.

You can merge the two at the tailgate, bringing out only one wire to the body, in the harness, and another at the relay to the body, and one from the dash switch to the body, if its in a plastic panel on the dash (or just clean off around the switch body to make good contact.

 

Thanks, but I'm a bit confused about what you're talking about. Very early on in this, I showed this photo:



This is just the connector for the driver's side courtesy light. It didn't work because of a problem with the ground. It IS dramatic looking.


My photo of the accessory block shows some melted plastic drips in the area, which is kind of weird, but no real problem with the accessory block itself nor the wires connected to it. The relay, which is just to the right of it with the three-prong connector attached, looks fine cosmetically given that it's apparently 37 years old, even though it apparently doesn't work. But it's not melted or anything, and it seems to be properly grounded if being grounded means that it's fastened to the chassis solidly with a screw, which it is. There is no separate ground wire attachment on this relay, just the three prong connector, so I presume it grounds through the metal shell.