I am looking for some basic info on how to remove the rear window motors on my cabriolet, its time to bite the bullet and re-grease them. thanks bruce
Might take a bit of searching but there was one person who posted all the details of their removal. Its been over a year since I read it, but I know it's out there. Haven't done mine yet, I just help them up hoping that will give me one more year.
Look about the Mondial section for a few threads. Questions: 1. Is this the right side or left side? 2. Is the window in question up or down? There is a big difference in the answers.
If you want a quick option, you can do a reasonable job of greasing them without removing them. By removing the louver/strakes and the small cover plate underneath them, you can get at the vertical window lift track and the flexible drive coming off the motor. I actually did this last night, it took about 30-minutes per side. No, it's not 100%, but it made a huge difference in how quickly they go up and down. Attached is a photo of what you see when you remove the panel--the motor is just forward to the left in the photo, and the flex drive is the thing looping in the foreground. I think it goes around and comes up the window track that the motor is affixed to, just inside the car in front of the opening. The second photo is the bottom of the track (the camera was upside down) The flex drive can be seen looping in from the bottom and going up as the near track, I think. The grease on my drivers side window was pretty much solid. You can reach in and wipe it off the tracks, and clean some of the real gunk out of the flexible drive, which is housed in sort of a split tube. I used spray white lithium into the flex drive to clean and lubricate, wiped it off and pushed white lithium from a tub in with my fingers. The track I just wiped down to clean, then wiped on fresh grease from the tub. I know that doesn't entirely clean and lubricate it, but that one window went from not moving until the 3rd press of the button to moving at a pretty good clip. I used to have to help pull it up a bit, and I'm sure that wont happen now. I'd really love to see a good photo of one of the units out of the car, since I can't figure out exactly how it works. Does anyone know if the flex drive loops all the way around and turns into sort of a screw jack inside the window track? For the time and difficulty of what I did, the rewards were huge. The only difficult part is getting the louvers off, since they look kind of fragile. They are held in with a single screw, then push slightly forward to unhook clips at the ends of the strakes. Plus, it was great to clean all the old wax off from under where they'd been. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Thanks for your comments. I was avoiding mine entirely. This may have inspired me to at least look at the issue and do what you have done.
Efforts from Mikael, of Finland. see; http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=247725 Image Unavailable, Please Login
Yes, it seems to work, so far... Good thing with regulator build like this is, that you can take window out from car without going trough enginebay. btw, you do not need to take airbox out like I did, you can "simply" push oilcooler and box toward engine and you have enugh room to take window out. If your window is stuck down, you might have to...
If it's not immediately apparent, I'll give a quick run-down on how it actually works. as least on my '87. The window regulator is like the one on the right reposted by 350HP Mondial. In that image, the front of the car would be to the right. The window is pushed up and down by essentially a tightly wound spring that slides back and forth in the looping channel. That portion of the channel to the right of the motor is where it extends when the window is down. The spring goes through the center of the motor, which somehow pushes it up or down. It doesn't rotate. There is quite a lot of surface area in the channel and the spring must press against the outsides of the loops, so changing the lubrication in there makes a pretty big difference. The rounded channel is about 3/4 of the way around the spring, so it is possible to get some fresh material in there. You can reach as far forward as the vertical track pretty easily-to the right of the looped channel, and moving the window up and down will carry some fresh lubricant into the forward portion of the channel. One of my grilles is still off, so I'm going to go see if I can reach the forward loop tomorrow. Knowing this would have helped me, so hopefully it helps someone else.
Mine is also the drivers side. Both operate at very slow speed and I help them to the top. Passenger silent, drivers makes an ugly noise similar to a munch of chewed up bearings grinding slowly away. When I get my car back I think I'll get in there and do something about this.
Thanks for the pics and decription Peter. When my '86 3.2 Cab gets back from the shop from a Major +++ some, this will be among my todo's for a next rainy weekend day. I also need to rebuild the antenna to put a new shaft in, anyone know what might be a direct replacment? Someplace via a search I saw a suggestion that 2000 Saab 93 shaft's work. One lesson I learned - the European bosch antennas do not pick up AM broadcasts, bought one to replace my broken one.
Funny, my bad window is the driver's side as well. Today I experimented, I can't possibly get my hand in enough to reach the forward track. I can however spray white lithium onto the spring/cable as someone else lowers the window, carrying the grease into the forward part of the channel. The window is really moving now. It comes up quickly, but about three times it will make a sort of "ka-chung", which I'm assuming is the drive somehow binding or slipping. The whole track flexes when it does this, so there is a fair amount of force somewhere. I was hoping more lube would cure that, but I wonder if it is actually something that is already worn too much, sort of a missing tooth effect. On the antenna note, I made the comment that the SAAB mast may work. I have no idea if it does, but it looks pretty similar. My wife has pretty much destroyed another one, so perhaps I will swap it out soon and can measure up the twisted remains so someone can compare. I replaced my entire unit with the Harada MQ-1, which is almost a direct swap in. Inexpensive, but hard to find. If you Google it, you will first come up with the criminals I first delt with. Do not order from them!
Bump, this may be a project for me for today. Spray white lithium grease, guess I have a quick errand to run.
