I have spent all weekend trying to get my cables wound and routed correctly. I used Birdman's tutorial. I adjusted my cable length, three times, taking the spool apart every time which, as you know, was miserable if you were following this --> http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/308-328/418465-window-motor-spool-retaining-ring.html I don't want to do it anymore. I have been extremely patient, but it's defeated me. Anyone is SoCal a master of this and want to do it for me? I will pay, barter, tell jokes, sweep,... whatever. I am completely spent. Thanks dudes. (Posted this in the SoCal section)
Find an engineer - one with slender arms that actually fit INSIDE the door, through the speaker-hole. Feed them well.
I will assume that the cable length is correct. Walk us through your procedure and what year is your car?
Took one door apart. I followed Birdman's tutorial. Cable was too long. Pulled the clean motor/new cable. Double checked the length against Birdman's tutorial. It matched what he said it needed to be, although I discovered here (http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/141248685-post31.html) that it was too long and needed to be pulled back. Tried it, again, at the new length and couldnt get it to wind... Fast forward to this past weekend--- It had been a while since I tackled the windows. I knew it was a pain in the arse, so I set it aside for the last thing to do. Fresh cable. Fresh grease. Yadda... Window 1: too short. Window 2: too short. Even at the new, 'correct' length. Unwound them. Rewound them, with one less rotation (three, not four). Too long. Cut the wire. Took the entire spool apart, which was misery... again. Cut new cable to the length Birdman suggest. Four rotations around the spool. Too long. Spool apart, again. Cut new cable. Something between Birdman's length and the 'actual' length of OEM cable. Four rotations: still short. Three rotations: still longish. I am done...
Mr Big, we meet again... Deep breaths! I was exactly where you are now when I did the drivers side window on my car earlier this summer. I did exactly the same thing too. Wound it 3 times and it was too long for the tensioner to pick up the slack. Wound it 4 times and it came up just a little short to fit on the tensioner pulley. I then took the think apart multiple times never ending in success. After coming back to it, and thinking it through like I should have from the start, I ran the cable back and forth 2-3 times while keeping the cable under tension (Note: I did not connect the cable to the window until the very end). I did this by holding the tensioner pulley and keeping enough tension on the line to prevent it from popping out the other pulleys. After winding it all the way down the last time the cable was finally tightly wound on the spool and I was able to loop it over the tensioner pulley and then tighten the pulley within its track. Another thing to keep in mind is that the cables cross over each other at the leading edge of the window. With the motor in the door, one end of the cable come out of the spool closest to the door skin side. The cable should be routed up to the pulley at the leading edge of the window from this point. The cable starting at the point on the spool closest to the inside of the door should be routed toward the tensioner pulley. This will ensure that the window stop doesn't snag on the horizontal cable running to the tensioner pulley as you raise the window. If you do it the other way around you will end up with a window that only goes half way up. I'd be happy to do it for free, but you'd have to fly me in from Toronto Good luck!
Can't get around the adjustment wheel. If I remove the cable from the lower/rear pulley, then it will go around the adjustment pulley, but that is simply swapping pulleys. Did this. No good. This was addressed and is correct on my install. This just might happen if no one bites.
I did this in a snap. 2 tries and I was done. I think the key is running the motor up and down to adjust the length and letting the motor handle the slack.
Hey Doc, Although I have never done the cables on my windows, they are on my list. Not sure if you have time during the week or if you want to drive up to Northern Ventura County, but I'm sure we could get them worked out. My weekends are full, but any day but Wednesday's work for me PM me if your interested.
I went through the same frustration, Drove me nuts! I seem to recall the cable length on a 308 is 10 feet 10 inches for what ever help that is. But I finally called my ace mechanic who comes out to my house and fixes stuff for $50/hr and no I'm not giving out his name. When it came time to string the cable he did something I had never seen before and never read about on F-Chat. Hope I can explain it correctly. He started threading the cable and as he went along used vise grips to hold what he had and not turn to spageti. When he got to the lower rear pully where the cable is clamped to the glass he made a loop in the cable about 3 " in diameter and clamped the loop to the glass. Voila! Adjustable cable! This solved the cable length issue immediatly. Hope it helps you - hopefully I've explained it enough for so you at least get the gist. Good Luck! Steve
Some things just take the fun out of working on cars. Working in the doors is high on that list for me. Right up there with replacing harnesses.
I know some might loose sleep over this solution, but here goes: I'm assuming the cable is just a little short from your posts? ... maybe? There's an area in the door where you can cut and recrimp a new piece of cable in to "fine tune" the overall length. I recall it being part of the diagonal length across and down. I can do a rambling explanation if I'm not making sense and you want to give it a shot ... Otherwise I'm not that far away if you could get the door down to San Diego area. Cheers, Sean
It's been about 5 years since I did the windows in my old GTB QV and it took longer to clean everything up than it did to replace the unit... Don't remember the exact procedure but I'm finding it amazing you guys are having this much trouble. First thing I would suggest is to take both door panels off, remove one window unit and leave the other one in place for a reference. The only other thing I had was a diagram of the cable routing from BigTex and read all posts on the procedure. I do remember winding the cable around the spool and using tape? Around the unit to hold it in place until I could get it in place and cables routed.by chance did you read every post you could find on the subject before starting this project?
As strange as it is, this thread is inspiring me to tackle this task. QUESTION: After doing this, do the windows actually work?
SoCal: Sometimes it is easy to let the cables slip out of place, or get twisted the wrong way, and that makes the entire thing very difficult and frustrating. But cleaning the internal mechanism and properly lubing things makes an enormous difference. From dead slow to just "lame 1970s." DrK: Are you sure that you have the path of the windows correct? Remember it is different than the GTB/S, AND there was a change sometime in 1975, so your early car could be even different than my '79. And you can basically run the cable several ways on the existing pulley system, but that each pattern gives a different needed cable length. So if you are using the right length cable (same as what you took off) you have to use the corresponding path... sounds zennish. I have a hard time describing this, but when I did mine it was very important that where the cable exited the spool, it went in the proper direction. IE, that it came off the top of the spool and went down and not up - but I forget which way was correct (it's been 3+ years). I believe that the cable cross itself coming off the spool, making a little mid-air X. So one way, the bottom cable went to the bottom of the door, and the top went toward the top of the door. And the other way, the bottom cable headed up, and the top cable headed down. That was the right way, and made a big difference. If worst comes to worst for you, I'll pull a door panel and photograph the insides of my '79. Jonathan Denver, CO Image Unavailable, Please Login
Replacing the flocking, re-greasing the motor, and replacing the pulleys the travel time (with no window) was a round 7.5 seconds. By adding the relays it was down to around 5 seconds. Adding the glass slows it to about 6 seconds.
i always wondered if there was a replacement kit that replaces the old motor and cable pulley assembly. many of the newer kit cars use a modern single/track assembly with more powerful updated motors.
I took pics of the first door I took off. But, maybe someone with a GT4, who's door panels are off could post some more pics... I know exactly what you are talking about and have it correct. This might be good to have, as a reference for everyone. As I take a close look at my motor, before I pulled it, it looks like the routing of the cable coming off the motor/spool is different than recommended on Birdman's tutorial. This is not to say his tutorial is incorrect: a GT4 was the Guinea pig before the got it right. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I rebuilt mine per Birdmans instructions, except i didn't replace the cable on the second motor because neither one warranted cable replacement, I just disassembled, lubed and reassembled the second unit. I didn't have any problems that i recall reinstalling it, winding the motor back and forth straightened out the cables. IIRC, I installed cables around the pulleys, except for the tensioned one,and used my finger as tension while I ran the motor, then put the cable on the tension pulley and reconnected the window. His cable routing was correct for my '79 car. Doug
I am going to give it one more go by routing the cable around the pulleys first then letting the motor do the winding for me. This would alleviate me having to guess how many revolutions the cable needs to go around the spool. This will also give me an ACTUAL account on whether or not the cable is 'too long' or 'too short'