Hello slide531

From your photo it sure looks like you have a frayed cable.

I’d say that’s the cable run at bottom end of the regulator channel on the driver’s side of the vehicle, so when you close the window the frayed piece of wire doesn’t go into the housing, it goes the other way and runs alongside the regulator channel where it wouldn’t have any housing to squeeze through. But where is the other end of the frayed cable? Most likely somewhere inside the black sleeve the other side of the housing. And that could be your problem. If the loose frayed cable other end is tangled up inside the black sleeve it is most likely jamming up inside the sleeve when you try to close the window, and causing the ‘pinch sensor’ to kick in and roll your window back down every time.

And maybe there’s more fraying cable at the pulley coil on the motor. You say it looked a bit mangled. You should take another look at that and get a photo.

I’ve attached photos of my frayed cable where it is coiled on the pulley coil attached to the motor. When I first saw a loose piece of wire similar to the one in your photo, I snipped it off with pliers hoping the window would then work OK. But after a few open and close actions with the window there were a lot more loose frayed cable ends, as you can see from my photos.

I hope your frayed cable isn’t the problem, but I reckon it is! Like I said, take another look at the cable where it meets, and winds round the pulley coil on the motor. If you see frayed cable there too, that’s the problem for sure.

You can’t just replace the cable. You have to buy the full Regulator Sub-Assembly, but you can get this (Toyota Part No. 69807-35030) from a Toyota Dealer for around $125, and following the instructions I linked you to earlier you can do the repair yourself. No need to replace the Power Window Motor unless that is badly rusted or damaged.

If you need any more help on the repair, let me know.

I notice from your photo that there’s a lot of mud inside your Tailgate. That was the same with mine. The Tailgate interior isn’t watertight, when the back window gets wet, the rain water, or other gunk, runs down inside the Tailgate. Dust gets in there too! That’s the reason there’s a plastic sheet sealed with butyl strip over the service hatch, it keeps the water/gunk/dust away from the electrics and wire harness. But water/gunk/mud/dust gets inside the tailgate behind that plastic sheet, and it contacts the window regulator and motor, sticks to them and over time damages them. Like other posts on this subject say, it’s important to keep the drain holes at the bottom of the tailgate clear, and I’d say important to flush the Tailgate out with clean water when you’ve been off roading, or driving through dirt, salt or sand, by hosing water onto the back window and letting it run down the outside of the window into the Tailgate. You can also get access to the bottom of the interior of the Tailgate by popping out the two black plastic closing hand holes which are on the bottom of the Tailgate. They pop out easily if you pull hard on the top edge of the black plastic. Once they are out, you can get your hand, and a hose, inside the tailgate and pull out/ hose out mud/ salt/ sand/ gunk, and you can clear the inside of the drain holes.

I hope you don’t think I’m being a smart-ass here with all my comments and advice! I’ve learnt all this the hard way over the last 6 weeks, and want to share my knowledge with others to help them with or help them avoid the same thing happening to their 4Runner!!

Cheers, David H

Attached Images