My Town Car, like just about every Cartier, has a factory Moonroof. Also like alot of these cars as I found out, the switch was broken. The factory switch is a really poor design, there is a rocker that attaches and turns 2 little square pegs to operate the switch. Unfortunately, the rocker fatigues and no longer can turn the pegs, in fact, mine was so broken, it would fall off if you touched it.
Doing my research, it turns out that this is a really common problem in '90-'97 Town Cars, and until sometime in '10 you could still get the rocker part of the switch from Ford rather cheap, but not anymore. So I got to thinking, what other car in the FoMoCo family came with a similar switch that could be made to work? Went to the pick and pull and found a '99 Escort ZX2 with an intact switch that looked as tho it would work. And it does.
The Escort, like the Town Car, places its switch in its front dome light, but unlike the Town Car, its screwed in. Its also very slightly larger, but some trimming and it works great. They are both 4-wire switches.
Town Car switch (rocker missing):
Escort:
Town Car dome light front, with switch:
Back with switch removed:
Escort rocker placed on dome light, as you can see its bigger, but not by much:
Used the rocker to mark the lamp housing where it needed to be cut:
After some trimming with the Dremel, both on the front and back of the dome light, it fits quite well, almost as if it was supposed to be there. Then it was time to wire it up.
The wiring is really simple, only 4 wires, but they don't match colors between the 2 cars, so out came the wiring books.
Town Car's blue/black wire goes to the Escort's Green wire.
Town Car's Red/Yellow wire goes to the Escort's Yellow/Blue wire.
Town Car's Yellow/Red wire goes to the Escort's Yellow/Red wire.
Town Car's black wire goes to the Escort's black wire.
I spliced it onto the Town Car's plug, so I can still unplug it should I ever need too.
The end result:
Works as it should. I'm really happy with the result, tho I could have trimmed it alittle neater. But it only cost me $2 for the switch, and about an hour to get it all trimmed and installed, and now my roof works as it should. The escort's switch is very similar to the regular window switches in alot of fords, so it should last a good long time unlike the original Town Car switch. Speaking of the stock switch, mine had already been replaced before, apparently they would have been color-matched from the factory but replacements were always black, and the broken switch was black.
Doing my research, it turns out that this is a really common problem in '90-'97 Town Cars, and until sometime in '10 you could still get the rocker part of the switch from Ford rather cheap, but not anymore. So I got to thinking, what other car in the FoMoCo family came with a similar switch that could be made to work? Went to the pick and pull and found a '99 Escort ZX2 with an intact switch that looked as tho it would work. And it does.
The Escort, like the Town Car, places its switch in its front dome light, but unlike the Town Car, its screwed in. Its also very slightly larger, but some trimming and it works great. They are both 4-wire switches.
Town Car switch (rocker missing):
Escort:
Town Car dome light front, with switch:
Back with switch removed:
Escort rocker placed on dome light, as you can see its bigger, but not by much:
Used the rocker to mark the lamp housing where it needed to be cut:
After some trimming with the Dremel, both on the front and back of the dome light, it fits quite well, almost as if it was supposed to be there. Then it was time to wire it up.
The wiring is really simple, only 4 wires, but they don't match colors between the 2 cars, so out came the wiring books.
Town Car's blue/black wire goes to the Escort's Green wire.
Town Car's Red/Yellow wire goes to the Escort's Yellow/Blue wire.
Town Car's Yellow/Red wire goes to the Escort's Yellow/Red wire.
Town Car's black wire goes to the Escort's black wire.
I spliced it onto the Town Car's plug, so I can still unplug it should I ever need too.
The end result:
Works as it should. I'm really happy with the result, tho I could have trimmed it alittle neater. But it only cost me $2 for the switch, and about an hour to get it all trimmed and installed, and now my roof works as it should. The escort's switch is very similar to the regular window switches in alot of fords, so it should last a good long time unlike the original Town Car switch. Speaking of the stock switch, mine had already been replaced before, apparently they would have been color-matched from the factory but replacements were always black, and the broken switch was black.
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