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Power Windows

Last Changed 5/8/2-11
If we are going to have a luxury trailer hauler, it made sense for Red Rover to have power windows.  We could have shopped some more looking for a Volvo 770 that already had power windows.  But Red Rover was the right truck and we felt adding power windows would not be that big of a project.

Parts or Aftermarket Kit?

We had a choice of trying to find the parts in salvage yards, buying new parts, or going with an aftermarket kit.

The usual reason a truck is in the salvage yard is because it has been totaled.  And usually, the cab is the cause of the totaling.  If the doors survived a crash, then the salvage yard wants to sell the door as a unit.  The prospect of finding the parts we needed in the salvage yard cost effectively was not good.

We did not check the cost of new parts but we were sure that is would exceed the cost of an aftermarket kit by a large margin.

Aftermarket Kit

The world of aftermarket kits for power windows is rather limited.  We found two brands, Colibri and SPAL.  The kits offered by both manufacturers seem relatively equivalent.  We choose SPAL just because we liked the look of the kit.

SPAL offers two levels of kits, regular and Deluxe.  The Deluxe has larger motors and the option of having a manual handle that can be inserted should you need it.  The way we will be finishing Red Rover's doors, the manual handle was not an issue.  The larger motors was the reason for the selection of the Deluxe kit.

When you buy these kits, you can buy them with and with the switches.  There are is large assortment of switches available.  A1 Electric is a good source of information on power window kits and here is a link to their switch offerings: A1 Electric Online Catalog.
Power Windows We did get a set of Volvo power window switches via our ace salvage yard source Ron Knight, known as Sibernut on Escapees.  The modular panel on the Volvo door for the window and mirror switches made it easy to add the switches.  We felt having the Volvo switches would look better.  However, we ordered the SPAL Deluxe kit with a set of switches as a hedge against possible problems with using the Volvo switches.  You never know with the sophistication of Volvo circuits, how well aftermarket items will work.  We felt the cost of the switches was worth the insurance.
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Power Windows The kit has arrived.  The instruction book seems very well done but as in all projects, the proof of the pudding will be when we install it.

We found that it looks like the Volvo switches will work fine.  They function the same as the switches that came with the kit.  In the installation book, there is a table of several switches including some original manufacture vehicles.  It looks like the Volvo switches match Opal switches.  That makes sense.  Opal is General Motors Europe and Volvo is the evolution of GMC Heavy Truck, White and Volvo mergers.
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The Installation

Power Windows While those Volvo doors look really large, it can get crowded when you add the power window drive assemblies.  The space conflict comes when add the cable for the mirrors and windows has to be routed around the window drive assembly.  Also, we wanted to retain the inner cover panel and that limited the placement of the drive motor.
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Power Windows We had to move the motor several times.  Making sure the mounting bolts did not interfere with the window movement, fitting the drive assembly inside the cover panel, and being able to route the door wiring was not easy to predict until the assembly was mounted.
Power Windows In fact we did the driver's door, then the passenger's door.  The passenger door turned out so much better from "practice makes perfect" that we went back and changed the driver's door to match the passenger door.
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Not only did the Volvo switches we acquired work, but the wiring harness for the power windows was already in the doors.  Probably a standard practice to include almost everything in the wiring harness.  In fact, the blue/black color coding of the harness connections to the motors matched the wires on the kit motors.  Not having to run wiring was a big time saver.

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Power Windows The kit includes these hole covers.  They can be snapped off and a manual handle inserted.  The snap cover does not span the entire space that the manual handle covered.  As you would expect there is where you can see the original color of the upholstery.  This is not an issue since we plan on recovering the upholstery portion of the doors along with the seats.  We haven't decided whether we will retain the manual handle operation when the recovering job is done.
Power Windows
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A nice thing about this kit using the existing Volvo wiring harness is that is was a non-destructive installation.  Just drilling some mounting holes.  That means that we can switch to regular Volvo lift mechanisms without having to undo wiring changes.


Disclaimer: The information in this site is a collection of data we derived from the vendors and from our personal experiences.  This information is meant as a learning guide for you to  make your own decisions  Best practices and code should always be followed.  The recommendations we make are from our personal experiences and we do not receive any compensation for those recommendations.
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