63 Lincoln Sedan Window Relay?

[neilpierson]

Reposting--first post may not have come through.

I crossed wires while charging the battery--yes, I already know how stupid that is--and all six of the power windows stopped working. No click when the switches are operated, no power at the switch. Power seems to be going through the circuit breaker. I'm guessing I fried the window safety relay. Sound right? I'd like to confirm. Is the part number C1AF-14677-A? Is it mounted on the back of the fuse panel? How do you access it--disassemble the glove box, or can you get at it through the passenger wheel well? how should I test it? Thank you.

[TonyC]

That sounds like a very good assessment of the failure. If all the windows fail at the same time, it's a blown safety relay.

Sorry I can't help in ID'ing its exact location, but I'm not too versed in such details with that year. And if my shop manuals are examples of the norm, I doubt your own shop manual will tell you anything about its location. But somebody here should know.

---Tony

[neilpierson]

Thanks, Tony.

[neilpierson]

I am hoping to get a little more advice before I screw this up. There a lot of people out there who know more about this than I do!

[mge825y]

The guy you want to talk to is John Brewer.
Here’s his website and on it you will find his email and phone number. He’s been great helping me and others with window relays, switches and convertible top relays.

https://www.brewerclassiclincoln.com/

[TonyC]

John's also a very good source for curing the worst design flaw these cars have had: The steering.

---Tony

[frasern]

I cannot find a safety relay on the '61, '62, or '63 wiring diagrams. They show a safety switch, but the relay may be a '66 thing. If your part# is for a switch, that may be the toggle on the drivers door armrest.

[TonyC]

I know which toggle Fraser is referring to; that will be the lock-out toggle. It has only the singular purpose of killing power to the window switches except the driver's controls. Later toggles had double-action, dual-purpose of lock-out and power-bypass, the latter purpose being to feed direct battery power to all the window switches in the event of a main-circuit failure (usually meaning the safety relay had seized up or fried). But the engineers did not come up with the bypass feature until '65 (then they ditched it after '69, which I still think was the way-wrong answer).

Of course, others who know your year's window setup will confirm the existence and location of a safety relay. I'm pretty sure that there has to be one located somewhere, despite what the wiring diagrams may (or may not) show.

---Tony

[Mike]

Quite often it was some sort of circuit breaker not a relay.

I guess I'll be figuring all this out on mine too, right now only the vent Windows work.

[TonyC]

I will risk going on record saying that is not the case with '60s Lincolns; yes, the power to the system is regulated by circuit breakers, one main inside the dash and one in each individual motor; but switching control for the system was done by relay. Considering how relay-happy engineers were in that decade (relays were big back then, even in "Star Trek"), it stands to reason barring evidence to the contrary.

Of course, this is subject to verification or refutation by somebody who has first-hand experience with the system of that year.

---Tony

[neilpierson]

Thank you to all who have chipped in.

As for the relays and wiring diagrams: I think the relay is not shown in the shop manual and supplement. In the big Ford Motor Company Wiring Diagram book, the diagrams do not show a relay, but the schematic (page I6M2) does. It says there should be three wires: Black-Yellow, Red-Yellow, and Brown-Red.

I've called John Brewer and John Cashman, but John B. hasn't worked on one of these in a long while, and John C. said I was looking in the right place. But John C. didn't replace the window relays, he wired around them, so he couldn't give me advice on how to remove and replace them.  He suggested I look for "a yellow wire with a blue marker, a red wire, and a third wire." That's not the same as the schematic.

I'm including a couple of pictures of what I think are the relays behind the passenger front wheel.  They seem to have rubber boots. The "relay" (if that's what it is) for the antenna is on the left, towards the rear of the car.
I don't see anything around the "relays" that looks like mounting flanges or like screws.  I'm not sure which "relay" is the window safety relay or what color wires I'm looking for, and I don't know how to remove the rubber boots or detach the "relay." Any guidance would certainly be appreciated! Stop me before I pull out the Sawz-All.

[Mike]

I'm curious to know.
Oddly enough there are some generic power window wiring diagrams floating around that are supposed to cover all ford vehicles and they note that the safety relay is for ford and mercury only. Maybe they are based off the manuals and wrong or maybe there really is no relay and everything is right?

[TonyC]

Too bad Ron Baker is not around anymore; I think if anyone would know the real facts behind the story, he would. Everybody else got their starts by following his lead. The only other people who would know, I think, are those who also own that year Suicide and have worked on their windows.

Unfortunately, I cannot speak for '63; I only know the '66 and '67 setups, which have a cluster of relays inside the engine bay on the driver's side, and the window safety relay is among them. That's one major handicap I've noticed about the shop manuals of the day: They speak of relays, but they never indicated their respective locations. The only clues they gave were in the wiring schematics (assuming those were accurate at time of print), by wire color code. That was what prompted me to sketch and enumerate every relay on my car, including each one's location and purpose by its respective number.

---Tony

[frasern]

I have seen that wire cluster on my '63 parts car, but not really looked at the inside to see what lurks there. I can look, next time I go out there, but that will not be for a few days, unless someone else has something closer. There are some screw bottoms visible in your picture, indicating that panel removes from inside, and no one has ever worked behind a Lincoln dash, and come away happy!

As for the wiring diagrams, I have large format A.E.A. ones for 62, and they are exact reprints of the shop manual. Lincoln wiring diagrams are really lame, but better than nothing. (sometimes)

[kingraph2]

Those rubber boots are not relays. They are for getting the wiring through the firewall. Is the window relay located at the bottom of the B pillar?