I DID IT!

My window cable was down to it's last strands so I took the plunge and decided to attempt replacing it myself. I had read through the process in the 308 section and was a little hesitant. But after a trip to Home Depot to get all of my supplies, I dove in this weekend. Here in the States, we had a 3 day weekend so I felt I had plenty of time to screw up and try again.

I've attached some pics. But I started with a drawing of the routing of the cable so I'd remember how to thread it back in place later. The first obstacle I encountered was releasing the window from the cables. When the window is all the way down, the screw at the back of the door is obstructed by a part of the internal door structure. And when it's all the way up, the screw is also blocked. You have to get the window about midway to have free access to the screw.

The second obstacle was getting the wires off of the motor. The one on the bottom of the motor came off easily. But the other one was not budging. I finally had to use a screwdriver to wiggle it off.

Once I had disassembled everything, I was pleasantly surprised that the grease was still soft and greasy. After reading through the 308 posts, I was expecting dried, crusty, hard as a rock stuff. But not at all. So I was debating whether to leave it alone or to clean it. But since I had gotten the lithium grease, I decided to clean everything. I started spraying orange cleaner and noticed that it was pooling. So I just sprayed more and allowed it to sit and soak while I attended to the cable.

I cut the old cable off and just ran the old with the new between my fingers to get the right length for the replacement cable. I had to use a hammer on my linesman pliers to get the ferrules onto the new cable ends. But I was glad to see how flexible the new cable was. It was really easy threading it through the appropriate holes. I figured I'd wind the cable evenly from both sides. This would put the window about midway. This is where I need it to have access to the rear screw mentioned before. Bad idea. But more on that later.

After the cable was wound and secured with a zip tie, I took a toothbrush to the greasy parts and cleaned them up. I'm not sure if I over packed the new grease as I've never done this before. Then I re-assembled everything. But I forgot that I was looking at it from the wrong side. I had to take things apart and redo the assembly.

I had the motor back in the door and the new cable threaded and secured to the window. Oh, cutting the zip tie is a blind operation. It took a while to get the clippers in such a way that I could actually apply enough pressure to cut. But once done, I was pretty excited at this point because everything had gone pretty smoothly. I turned the key and hit the switch...and nothing. I forgot to put the wires back on!

I hit the switch and the motor starts turning. But I was hearing a terrible sound. The sound of the new cable getting all out of whack! OH NO! It was all a mess inside my door. WHAT HAPPENED?!

So I took everything apart again. But while I was diagnosing what went wrong, I noticed that the motor turns clockwise to raise the window. So I got everything back apart. And started to unravel the cable. I decided at this point to wind the cable to one of the extremes. Remembering the clockwise rotation for up, I proceeded to wind the cable accordingly. Not all the way to the stop though.

Before proceeding further, this time I also removed the top door panel. This allowed me a better sight line into the door. I reassembled everything and noticed that I could see the zip tie this time from above. It was a bit easier to cut this time. With the cable rethreaded, I decided to leave the window unattached to the cable. I nervously hit the window switch. I did it in little spurts this time. And no scary sounds this time. Everything was sounding great so I positioned the cable almost to the end of the cable and attached the window in the mostly down position.

Tentatively hitting the switch and...it worked. Up. Then down. Then up again. I noticed that coming down was a lot faster than going up. Going up would slow down right at the top of the motion. But it goes all the way up. So I was very pleased. And it seems winding both ends of the cable evenly was a bad idea.

I put my door panels back on. And went to play with my son. As he was patiently waiting for me and was becoming less patient. I had a thought to adjust where the cable attaches to the window to see if I can maintain a good speed going up until I hit the stop. Instead of the slowing down behaviour I have now. I'm also thinking to apply the relay fix that the 308 group have done. I'm just not sure where to power the relay from. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I'm not electrically inclined.

All in all, this took me 5 hours from start to finish with a lunch break. I'll tackle the passenger side when I get another free weekend.
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Thanks Craig.