so I have been plagued with this issue for some time now, almost a year. the rear window will not go up or down from inside the vehicle, it will however work with the key inserted into the back gate. along with that the rear wiper, sprayer, and defrost are all out. i have tried the window lock, nope not it. i have replaced the switch with a known good one, i have replaced the window limiting switch with a brand new one, i have also swapped out the rear window ECU with a known and tested good unit. so now im left with a conundrum... i am no good at reading electrical diagrams, even though i have a FSM for my 97, the electrical diagrams are like Greek to me. i have searched around for this issue, most of the threads are old that i see or are a simple window lock issue. i did get the window to work for me once over this summer in a random occurrence. i was waiting out a rain storm on a jobsite on the canadian boarder in the truck and had it running with the heat on to defrost the windows and use the wipers, when i dried the rear wiper and it worked, as well as my window going up and down. maybe for 5min(?) anyhow i have never been able to get it working again -it had been not working for at least a month prior to that.

anyone have some good ideas or leads to this @EatonKyleH you seam to know your way around the electrical systems lol know of a relay that could be bad but allowing me to still manually over ride it with the key in the lock switch?

have you checked the wiring harness where it flexes and enters the rear hatch?

Page 4 of my build thread has a picture of chaffed broken wires that were causing me rear hatch issues at the time.

^+1 a broken wire could cause it too randomly connect and work.

i had thought of this and convinced myself that this was not the case as i was able to power the window manually via the key. so i ruled out in my mind that the wire harness was not at fault. well tonight i just went out and pulled the back hatch harness cover and what would you know, 3 busted wires... FML well a new harness is $152.xx, i think i will try to fix my current one tomorrow and see what kinda damage i can do before i go buy a new harness. thanks again @EatonKyleH , i owe you a whole keg of beer at this point, (hope we never meet lol) naw i hope i do get the pleasure of meeting you and shaking your hand. you have saved me a time or two on electrical things

No problem Isaac! Glad you got it figured out.

I've fixed that problem area/wires a ton of times on customer vehicles. I've never had to replace the harness. I just use some butt connectors and similar gauge wire and heat shrink to repair them and make them an inch longer so it doesn't get flexed as hard.

Hit me up if you're ever in CO and I'll do the same if I'm ever passing through your neck of the woods.

So today I fixed this issue. I pulled center top trim panel in the back, undid the top of the sides, and gently pulled my headliner down and undid the two plugs for the back gate. One pug is white, the other is grey, pulled the harness out of the body and rolled back/up the rubber boot. Inside I have 5 broken wires. Two green, one with a white stripe, a white with black strip, a black and a grey wire. I had some sections of stock wire harness from another 3rd gen laying around so I did my best to match new section with like color. I really only added about 1" to the length but I also used self sealing butt connectors and then self vulcanizing tape to rewrap the cleaned up harness with. All told it took me about an hour, but I was pleased with the results. Everything works great now! I hope I don't have to go back into that for a while. Thanks again Kyle for showing me the light.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

Hello all,
This seems to be the appropriate thread for my issue, so, at the risk of making a fool of myself, I thought I'd post and see if you can point me in the right direction; mainly because I don't want to spend more time in the freezing temp than necessary.
I have a 2000 4runner.
- Rear window goes down with key, but not from dash button.
- Rear wiper won't work, but washer does.
- Defroster doesn't work, but dash button lights up.
I hadn't thought to try the key to lower the window until I read a post somewhere. That makes me pretty sure that it's a relay / electronic issue that controls the window / wiper / defroster (though, as I mentioned, washer works).
Is there one place / relay that is the likely culprit?
Many thanks,
Larry

Mine was the exact same issue minus the washer, mine did not spray. Do the same thing pull the rubber boot that the wires run through at the top of the gate and look at all the wires where they flex. I bet you will have broken wires. Changed every electrical component in the rear gate besides the window motor itself because I knew it was still good(key in the door...) I replaced the switch too. It was broken wires.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

I posted in January and just got around to it today. I had two broken wires and two with cracked insulation. Hooked them up and both the back window motor and the wiper blade work again! Appreciate you guys and this forum!!

That's exactly what mine ended up being.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

Have the same issue. Several broken wires and a few about to break. Anyone know what gauge wire I should use? Thanks

Match what's there. Thinner ones are 14 and thicker ones are 12. I'm pretty sure both sizes are in there.

Thanks TD!

All done..took about 20 minutes. everything works again! YAY

Thanks

Would this problem also happen if the casing is just broken and the copper wire is still fine?