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How To - Install A Stealth Power Window ConversionKeep your stock interior appearance while adding the convenience of power windows From the February, 2012 issue of Mustang Monthly By Mark Houlahan Photography by Mark Houlahan
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For some owners it’s easy to tear into a vintage Mustang with wild abandon, throwing concours ideas out the window in the name of modern amenities and creature comforts. At the other end of the spectrum are the diehard concours guys who spend countless hours looking for an NOS part and researching their Mustang’s factory build details to the tiniest degree. Yet there are others who enjoy the classic styling of the Mustang and want to drive a relatively stock appearing car but with a few hidden upgrades to make driving safer and more enjoyable. For those who fall in this middle area (or even the diehard restomod guys looking for something different/cool for their vintage Mustang), we want to introduce you to Electric-Life and their power crank switch. 01. Starting with the front... 01. Starting with the front window setup, you’ll need to have total access to your door shell and window regulator/hardware. Remove the handles, armrest, etc. to enable removal of the door panel itself. Use a door panel tool (nylon/plastic) to free the panel. We generally work the top row of clips out and then use a large flat blade screwdriver to pop out the bottom row of clips. What does the power crank switch do, you ask? It’s simple, really. The power crank switch is a reverse polarity-based Delrin assembly that houses a pair of micro switches and a splined shaft that accepts the stock window crank handles. Originally designed for custom interiors and the street rod market, many builders have been integrating them into stock interiors to give owners the ability to have power windows without modifying door panels and adding unsightly, or “incorrect,” window switch controls on the door or center console. The power crank switch is spring loaded and has internal stops that allow the window crank to rotate far enough to engage the internal micro switches while protecting the switch from overzealous window crankers. 02. The old window regulator... 02. The old window regulator is retained by six ½-inch bolts—four in the regulator body and two for the counter slide. Have someone help you by holding the glass as you remove the six bolts. Once the regulator is loose, you will find three Phillips head screws retaining the regulator to the bottom of the door glass that will need to be removed as well and then the regulator can be pulled from the door shell. Wiring the switches is no more difficult than wiring a traditional up/down rocker switch, but to fit the switches in the stock locations will take some minor grinding work to clearance the switch and the regulator for the front door fitment. If you are fitting power windows to a coupe or convertible, the rear window setup is a little more involved to use the switches, but is still very much possible to install in a home shop with hand tools.
We’re installing Electric-Life’s excellent bolt-in power window conversion kit on a ’68 Mustang coupe and adding their power crank switches to the install as well. While this ’68 has a mild interior upgrade (TMI carbon-look upholstery and Billet Performance Accessories window cranks), the owner didn’t want to cut up his new door panels for switches.  3. If your luck is anything...  3. If your luck is anything like ours, however, be prepared to have to remove the glass from the door. After 42 years, the little Phillips head screws are seized up and have rounded heads. Follow a shop manual to remove the rear vertical window guide, door glass scrapers, and door end seal in order to pull the glass free.  4. Once the old Phillips...  4. Once the old Phillips head screws are drilled out and the regulator channel removed, you should be able to remove what’s left of the screw with locking pliers.  5. A quick trip to the hardware...  5. A quick trip to the hardware store netted us six new 8-32 Phillips flat head screws to install our power regulators with. We’ll have to order new door belt line scrapers too, as removing them usually means totally destroying them in the process.  6. Electric-Life offers the...  6. Electric-Life offers the Mustang power window kits in direct fit configuration for the ’65-’70 Mustang (’69 with ’70 bolt-in glass conversion). We’re using their FD40-K front kit for ’67-’68 Mustangs and FD39-K kit for ’65-’68 Mustang quarter windows in our ’68 coupe. As you can see, the regulators come fully assembled, minus switches and switch wiring.  7. Electric-Life offers everything...  7. Electric-Life offers everything from traditional chrome switches to plastic European backlit switches, but we wanted our power windows to not be noticed, at least until we wanted them to be, by using their power crank switch at all four window locations.  8. In order to use the power...  8. In order to use the power crank switch in the front doors of the Mustang, some minor trimming of the regulator bracket and the switch are required, as they attempt to take up the same real estate. If you measure from the centerline of the manual regulator’s crank to the nearest mounting bolt holes, you can transfer that measurement to the new power regulator and trim away material as needed to obtain the same distance. Be careful how much you trim the crank switch as there is a small spring inside the handle; you can remove the top cover plate to determine your maximum depth.  9. Once you’ve modified the...  9. Once you’ve modified the switch transfer, determine the position of the three mounting holes on the door shell and drill them out with a 1/4-inch drill bit. There’s really only one way the switch will sit in the door shell due to the stamping of the door and the mounting of the regulator.  10. Following the included...  10. Following the included instructions, the provided wiring harness is connected to the switch (two grounds, two hot wires, and the up/down wiring to the motor itself).  10a. You will need to drill...  10a. You will need to drill a 1/2-inch hole in your door shell and the cowl side for the wiring to pass through to the passenger compartment, which means removal of the door sill plates and kick panels. The wiring kit includes grommets for both holes and plastic sleeving for the wires. Hind Sight Suggestions
As always, once we finish a project, there are several “Why didn’t we?” thoughts, so we figured we’d throw them into this sidebar and save you some frustration and/or time when you add your own power windows.
- Wear mechanic’s gloves. Not only are the regulators sharp, but so are the metal openings in your car. Our hands look like we were on the losing end of a hand shake with Freddy Krueger!
- While we pulled the whole glass out of the car to drill out our stripped screws, later the idea popped into our head that we most likely could have drilled out the screws right in the door opening. Doh!
- Drilling the cowl side wiring hole is easy; it’s the door side that’s not fun. While we crammed an air drill and hose into the door and got it to work, we’ve since installed a second set of these power windows on another car and had great success with “quick release” drill bits and a 12-inch drill bit extension chucked into a cordless drill. It allows the drill to be farther away from the vent window frame and gives more room for viewing.
- As noted, we had to destroy the glass scrapers during removal to get the glass out (see hind sight note above!), but we also had one door with a torn moisture barrier and a few damaged door panel clips. Do yourself a favor and order door panel clips and inspect your door for worn weatherstrips, etc. so you can order it all at once!
- If you’re installing power windows with the power crank switch on an early car with clip-on style window cranks, be sure to order the later crank handles that are retained with a screw, as that’s the only handle that will work on these switches.
- Using a readily available diagram online and some relays, you can get the driver’s crank switch to control the passenger side window too. It’s a neat add-on, but the owner of this car didn’t want the extra wiring.
 11. With the wiring routed,...  11. With the wiring routed, the switch can be mounted into the door shell followed by the power regulator. The regulator comes with its own 10mm retaining bolts, so you’ll need to break out the metric sockets for this part of the install. Temporarily connect the two ground wires and two power wires to a battery or charger and check the window operation. If the switch is reversed, remove the switch from the door and swap the blue and black wires from the window motor at the switch. When everything works as they should, tackle the other front door before moving to the rears.  12. Rear quarter window regulator...  12. Rear quarter window regulator removal requires full access to inside the quarter panel. Remove the rear seat base and back cushion, as well as both quarter trim panels.  13. The rear regulators are...  13. The rear regulators are bit tougher, as there’s simply less room to work, but at least you don’t have to deal with small Phillips screws as the glass is connected to the regulator by a single roller guide. The separate roller channel at the bottom of the quarter panel is removed first. Two 1/2-inch bolts retain it.  14. There are four 1/2-inch...  14. There are four 1/2-inch bolts that secure the quarter window regulator to the inner panel, along with one 1/2-inch bolt for the separate glass stop. Remove all five bolts, again with a helper holding the window glass for you, and snake the regulator out of the bottom of the inner panel.  15. Comparing the stock manual...  15. Comparing the stock manual regulator to the power regulator, it is evident that there’s no room for the power crank switch behind the inner panel. After some head scratching, we opted to trim the inner panel and direct mount the switch right on the regulator.  16. Fitting the power regulator...  16. Fitting the power regulator into the quarter panel and temporarily bolting it in place (you can also remove the mounting bracket and just fit that into the quarter panel for less weight/bulk), we marked where the stock crank opening hole was in relation to the power regulator bracket (red marker circle). Using that location, we drilled two mounting holes in the bracket and ground down the nearest motor mounting stud to clear the power crank switch.  17. Installing the power...  17. Installing the power crank switch directly to the regulator in this manner requires longer mounting bolts with backing nuts on the opposite side of the regulator bracket. For an extra measure of safety, we used a large fender washer with a notch cut in it (to clear a motor mounting nut) to secure the third mounting point of the switch.  18. While it may not look...  18. While it may not look pretty, we’ve actually not taken away any of the inner structure that would prevent the stock manual regulator to bolt back in if desired later. The opening was determined after some quick measuring and cut with a cut-off wheel and additional clearancing of the panel behind the trim panel bracket with a carbide burr. Note the two layers of painters tape on the glass to protect it during cutting/grinding.  19. Fitting the quarter...  19. Fitting the quarter window regulator with the switch bolted on is a real patience tester because there’s so little room. With a little gentle prying, we got the regulator into place and the switch in the opening, but in retrospect it might have been better to install the power crank switch with tapping screws (or weld nuts onto the regulator mounting bracket) so that the switch could be installed after the regulator is mounted. Notice we simply grounded the two ground wires with a ring terminal near the motor and joined the two power wires together for a single run to the front of the car. Now you get to repeat the fun for the other quarter window.  20. To finalize our wiring,...  20. To finalize our wiring, the rear power window switch positive wires were run along the door sill channels to the kick panel area where they were connected to the positive wires coming from the front doors (note the front door ground wires connected to the cowl sheetmetal).  21. The positive wires were...  21. The positive wires were then routed to the dash and to a fuse holder (not included), which we connected to a hot-at-all-times dash wire (per the owner) so that the windows could be controlled without the key in the ignition. If wiring all four windows through one power source, Electric-Life suggests a 25-30 amp fuse, but if you are running power for each side, or for front and rear separately, a 20-25 amp fuse for each will suffice.  22. Back together and the...  22. Back together and the only tell-tale sign there is anything different with the car from when we started is the small wire bundle traveling between the door and body. But with the black plastic sleeving, it just about disappears on this dark colored car.
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