Power window resuscitation

[Bob Johnson <worktheweb@yahoo.com>]

Morning all.

Just thought I'd let everyone know that if they have any problems with
their power window motors...I can fix it.  I spent about 10 hours last
week rebuilding the entire motor/window winder assembly.  Wanna hear
about it?  Good.

My rear passenger window quit working a while back.  Luckily it was up
when it quit.  I'd hit the button and would hear a clicking sound from
the door.  I took off the door panel and looked around and it looked
pretty complicated so I left it alone.  For about a month.  With the
door panel off.  After watching my 8-month old chew the top inch of
sound deadening material off I decided to either fix it or put the
panel back on.

I tried to remove the motor but you have to take out the entire
assembly.  I pulled the housing off of the motor (hint:  take note of
the orientation of the motor housing) and turned the motor until the
window started going down.  I've heard a lot of stories of the plastic
gear inside the motor housing failing so this was a good sign to me.

I unbolted the window and the window assembly and removed the entire
unit.  After scoping the thing out I realized that I had to remove the
window-winding springs to get inside the motor housing.  I undid the
Torx screws (T-20) and flipped the spring assembly over.  This was
fine until I walked away and the assembly went "Boing!" and unwound
itself.  No problem, fix that later.  I undid all of the housing
screws (T-10) and behold my motor in all its glory.  It was
disgustingly dirty.  Crap of all sorts was in there.  Plus the whole
thing is packed full of this disgusting grease.  The VW guy I spoke
with said it was a silicone grease not unlike dielectric grease.

There's two pieces to the top of the motor housing.  One covers the
relays and circuits that control the motor.  The other covers the
window winding gear.  To remove the motor you should remove both
covers but can do it by only removing the cover over the gears and
pulling the gears out.  At this point you should inspect the gears for
any broken teeth.  Mine looked fine.

Ok, I finished dissembling the motor and cleaned it with a can of
Tuner Renew from Radio Shack.  Then I filed the top layer of crap off
of the motor brushes.  The motor looked new at this point.  When you
reassemble the motor you have to make sure that the plastic housing
that holds the brushes in place is lined up correctly after you slide
the motor housing back on.  Note:  If you reverse the orientation of
this housing the motor will turn backwards.  Luckily for me I had
completely reassembled the entire window assembly before I found this
out.  Anyway, if you don't orient the little plastic housing correctly
the electrical contacts will miss the connections on the relay board
and the motor won't turn and you'll hear that lovely clicking sound. 
Luckily for me I had also reassembled the entire window assembly
before I found that out.

To reassemble the whole thing properly you should push the motor into
the housing and screw it down.  Looking into the housing the
electrical contacts for the motor should be pointed straight.  If
they're off to the side the motor won't work.  Then you should put the
gears back into the housing.  I had wiped off a lot of the grease
during my many disassembly sessions so I squirted in a bunch of
dialectric grease.  The VW guy I spoke with said not to use a
moly-based grease because it will eventually break down.  After you
have the gears in and the top screwed back down put the relay cover
back on and screw it down.

Now you have to wind the window cables back up which is a huge PITA. 
This thing is basically cable that runs through two sheaths that have
a spring at one end.  The problem is that the whole thing is wound
pretty tight.  It's easiest to reassemble with two people but can be
done by yourself.  What I did is to slide one of the sheaths in the
top of the housing and then tape it down with electrical tape.  Then I
wound up both of the cables (I think the cable from the green housing
goes on the bottom of the spool.  It only works one way) and placed
the spool onto the motor housing.  Then I used a screwdriver to
compress the spring until it popped onto the end of the motor housing.
 Then before it went boing again I taped that end down.  Then I
flipped the thing over and bolted it to the window assembly.  Piece of
cake!  Then I plugged it in to verify that it went up when I hit the
up button and vice versa.  After that it's gravy to bolt it back into
the window.

In retrospect I should have taken pictures of each step and created a
nice "How-to" web page but I'm too lazy.  It's amazing that I even
typed this in.  So if your window quits working, take it apart first
before you spend $400 at the dealer for a new one.

Oh yeah, if you respond to the list and complain about how long this
is please don't quote the entire article.

L8R,

Bob J.
94 GLX with fixed strut bearings--no longer scaring pedestrians!




_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com