Broken passenger side window - Ph2 - UCH - investigation - solution

[andy_casey]

I've just picked up a 2003 ’53’ Clio 1.6 16V Dynamique 3 door as a runaround and it had a couple of issues, one of which was the passenger side window not working. I did a lot of searching and saw that there were lots of possible things that I needed to check, so I decided to get on with it. Here’s a write-up of my investigations:-

Fusebox

First thing was to check the fusebox. The guide on the back of the cover shows that there is an electric window fuse, so I checked this but oddly, it doesn’t disable the driver’s side window – I think this has been covered in a thread by edde, amongst others. While the fuse was out, I checked that it was getting 12V, which it was, so I moved on to the switches.



Window Switches

After removing the blanking cap, I removed the door handles and inspected the switches. A bit of time with a multimeter later and I identified that I had no voltage at the switch, so I decided to do some investigation and after a little while, I had a better understanding of what was going on. I also disconected and removed the door wiring plugs and inspected them too.



*** For this description, we can ignore the smaller gauge wires, as they relate to the one touch, which is a separate circuit. ***

Fusebox to UCH to driver’s side door plug

From the fusebox, a red wire feeds in to the black plug on the UCH - this wire was live from the fusebox - where it is switched and exits via a red striped yellow (Y/R) (identified later) wire on the same plug - this wire was not live. Idecided to follow this Y/R wire and it then goes along the dash to the door plug. Confusingly, there are 2 Y/R wires in the passenger side door plug - the bottom pin is a switched live and is not connected to anything and the second from bottom pin runs from the UCH.



This presents the option of swapping the pins over and just using this switched live, rather than the UCH live but popping the pins out is a bit fiddly...

Driver’s side door & switch

Inside the door the Y/R from the UCH is split in to 2 feeds for the switch assembly – one feed for up, one for down. The 2 Y/R wires can be seen in the driver’s side switch plug picture.

There are two very similarly coloured wires, which are red striped grey (G/R). One of these is an earth, which terminates in the centre of the dash, under the digital display, the other runs to the passenger side switch.

The orange striped white wire (W/O) also runs to the passenger side switch.



Passenger side door & switch

The G/R and W/O wires from the driver’s side can be seen entering the switch. These are held at 12V unless the driver’s side switch for the passenger side window is pressed.

The other G/R wire is an earth, again terminated in the centre of the dash, under the digital display.

The orange striped pink wire (P/O) and orange striped orange wire (O/O) head off to the regulator motor and are alternated live / earth for up & down.



All wires passed a continuity test and as I am fortunate enough to have another Clio, so was able to test the switches on it and as they worked properly, I was able to tick that lot off the list. So, wiring was fine but no feed from the UCH...

UCH

Next it was time to bypass the UCH and test the window, so I bridged the Y/R and red wires at the connector with a length of wire. The feed to the UCH is both switched and fused, so this was a completely safe thing to do. Bingo! The window worked, well at least it went up and down, I’ll gloss over the fact that the regulator obviously needs a bit of investigation where it holds the window!



This highlighted that the UCH was to blame! Surprise surprise... so it was time to remove it and start working out what was going on.

UCH Removal

To remove the UCH, there is a torx screw under the fusebox and a 13mm bolt barely hidden by the kick panel trim. Once those 2 things were undone, it was a matter of removing the 3 plugs and removing the metal bracket before sliding the UCH towards the rear of the car, to unclip it from the upper mount. I was then able to carefully manouver it out of the hole before removing the relays (these have either taken a kick or been brutalised before, as one of the brackets was snapped).



UCH Investigation

With the UCH removed, I then opened it up with a small flatblade screwdriver and started to look and see what I had.



On closer inspection of the pins on the black plug which I was interested in, I saw that they were connected to a relay (Taiko TB1-225B). A visual inspection of the tracks and some multimeter continuity testing later, I came to the conclusion that the relay was to blame, as the tracks were fine...



After trying to source a new relay and failing, I decided to bridge the pins and so got the soldering iron out. 10 mins later, I put it back in the car and tested it... and the fuse blew... back on the bench and I decided to remove the relay, as it was shorting out. With this done, the UCH went back in the car and hey presto, the window worked perfecty! While it was out, I reflowed all the UCH plug pins too.



So there you go, many hours’ work condensed in to a few pictures and words. I hope that this is of use to someone in the future, as it's saved me a small fortune!

Cheers, AndyC

 

[MWright]

Pretty good that pal, I've looked into the relay they are now branded as a Panasonic ATCB23.

Just finding those are a problem too.

So... Just by removing the relay and bridging them 2 pins it all works as normal and there's no hindrance on any other components?

I've somehow got the window to work but only on the drivers side and I have to operate it the opposite way I want, but the passenger switch doesn't do anything.

 

[ben lee]

great write up mods need to add this to the guides

 

[andy_casey]

As far as I can surmise, the only function of the relay is for the one-touch function but as there's no one-touch activated on the passenger side, it's therefore redundant. As I said in the write-up, the feed is fused by the 30 amp window fuse at the fusebox and is a switched live anyway, so there is a suitable level of protection there already and the 30 amp fuse only serves the passenger side circuit anyway - the driver's side window is controlled by the UCH fuse in the centre of the fusebox. Go figure...

There is also a switched live at the door plug, as mentioned in the write-up, so if someone wanted to figure out which fuse this is connected to, you could just cut and shut the wires at the door plug an fit a suitable fuse. I chose to keep it all factory and just bridge the connector on the PCB. This can also be easily undone, should there ever be a need to reinstate the relay control...

 

[andy_casey]

Pretty good that pal, I've looked into the relay they are now branded as a Panasonic ATCB23.

Close.. it's ACTB23 - http://www.panasonic-electric-works.com/peweu/en/downloads/ca_x61_en_automotiverelay.pdf

Just checking the coil resistance and it looks to be 225 Ohms (page 78 onwards).

I have an odd thing with the driver's side window and a few other things not working properly, so I wonder if removing the coil has thrown something out of balance. I'll have a look... If the energising circuit is no longer balanced, then I can fit a 225 ohm resistor to replicate the coil and leave the bridge in place.

Here's the conversion sheet for completeness:-

http://www.panasonic-electric-works...automotive_relay_part_number_reassignment.pdf (4 from the bottom on page 1).

 

[andy_casey]

Some more info on this.

 

[MWright]

Yeah same letters

After you posted this thread I did the exact same research as you and tried to find a replacement relay before bridging and removing the relay all together as I don't know whether that'll have any other issues with the UCH - an awesome find either way!

Plus I think when measuring the coil it measured 255ohm, I guess there's tolerances I suppose.

 

[andy_casey]

Measuring an old or dead relay might give a false reading, as will measuring in situ, due to the other components attached. The only true measurement would be a new relay not on a board... but then you've got to find a new relay...

I decided to identify which fuse controlled the occasionally inoperative items and on inspection, it seems to have been attacked with a file, so the mating face was in quite a state! Really?!?!? replaced with a fuse that's not been modified. I'll also clean and tweak the pins on the fuse box to ensure a decent contact. Hopefully this little side issue is purely a function of 10 year old Renault electrics combined with an enthusiastic amateur or incompetent 'professional'. Soon find out...

 

[andy_casey]

Right, no such problems today with the window or indicators with the exception that the indicators did not operate immediately after engine start. This may not have anything to do with this mod though... Got to love French electrics.

To complete the job, I've bought a 2W 220 ohm resistor to fit (£1.29 for 2 off the bay). The spec on the relay has a max switching power of 1.44W, so that should be more than adequate. I'll keep looking and testing but I feel that as the relay coil was knackered (I checked the relay and took the outer shell off to look at the innards). I have a picture of the relay innards to share later on.

 

[andy_casey]

By way of an update, a recurring issue with the UCH wiring is almost certainly the cause of the indicators etc. being inoperative.

 

[AtlasII]

I've had problems with my driver side window setting off the hazards when it reached the top and after a couple of months my passenger side will only go down, I could get it up again by tapping 12v into the motor so it seems its the relay. Did you solder the resistor where you bridged it? I've found the relay from a company, requested a quote but I'm not sure they will bother supplying just one.

 

[squirtleno1]

I, my friend, love you.

 

[fairm010]

You are a life saver, I'm going to try this tomorrow. @Typhoon looooook!

 

[Jo182]

By way of an update, a recurring issue with the UCH wiring is almost certainly the cause of the indicators etc. being inoperative.

Hi Andy, reading your post about this and experiencing a faulty passenger window on my Sport182..can I ask, did you eventually fit a 2W 220 OHM resistor (as opposed to the 225 OHM) to the UCH and did this fix the problem with the passenger window? When you removed the UCH did you have to remove the dash/glove box at all to gain access? About to attempt your fix this weekend. Many thanks

 

[Ads29]

Hi Andy, reading your post about this and experiencing a faulty passenger window on my Sport182..can I ask, did you eventually fit a 2W 220 OHM resistor (as opposed to the 225 OHM) to the UCH and did this fix the problem with the passenger window? When you removed the UCH did you have to remove the dash/glove box at all to gain access? About to attempt your fix this weekend. Many thanks :smile:

Are you sure it's the uch at fault? Its more common for the switches to fail first from experience.

If it is indeed the uch then it can be removed without having to take anything else off, glove box and dash stay in place