I've had the joy of replacing the window regulator on my driver side window. woo
Thought I'd share my experience in case it helps others.
Symptoms of the damage
About 3 weeks ago I notice the window jump a bit on the way up. From then on it made a horrible grinding sound when going up & down, a bit like crumpling paper. This seemed to get better as time went on.
When I had a free weekend I decided to open up the door and have a look. See if the guides need some lube. ( hoping it was something simple like that ). No improvement.
Next I took the window regular out. Motor looked fine, the gear on the pully looked fine. Nothing obvious. Operating the window regulator outside of the door still produced the same sound.
The cause
At that point I decided to get a new one, just before ordering I opened the central part. ( where the pully/drum that winds the cables up and down is ) This is riveted into place so needs the rivets drilling to open. Turns out the one of the cables had half snapped on the drum. There were threads of the cable all over the place. You could see where it was cutting groves into the outer housing. I guess this is why it sounded like it was improving over time.
I imagine it would not have been long before the cable would have snapped completely leaving me with an open window.
The fix
New window regulator installed. Took a bit of tweaking to get the fit correct with no air/water leaks. A good trick my brother suggested for checking the gaps is to trap a bit of paper in the window and pull it out. This gives a feel for how tight the window is against the rubber. Did this at several points around the window and its quite similar to the other side.
Once the hardtop is off will need to recheck with the soft top.
Back to the open road
Thought I'd share my experience in case it helps others.
Symptoms of the damage
About 3 weeks ago I notice the window jump a bit on the way up. From then on it made a horrible grinding sound when going up & down, a bit like crumpling paper. This seemed to get better as time went on.
When I had a free weekend I decided to open up the door and have a look. See if the guides need some lube. ( hoping it was something simple like that ). No improvement.
Next I took the window regular out. Motor looked fine, the gear on the pully looked fine. Nothing obvious. Operating the window regulator outside of the door still produced the same sound.
The cause
At that point I decided to get a new one, just before ordering I opened the central part. ( where the pully/drum that winds the cables up and down is ) This is riveted into place so needs the rivets drilling to open. Turns out the one of the cables had half snapped on the drum. There were threads of the cable all over the place. You could see where it was cutting groves into the outer housing. I guess this is why it sounded like it was improving over time.
I imagine it would not have been long before the cable would have snapped completely leaving me with an open window.
The fix
New window regulator installed. Took a bit of tweaking to get the fit correct with no air/water leaks. A good trick my brother suggested for checking the gaps is to trap a bit of paper in the window and pull it out. This gives a feel for how tight the window is against the rubber. Did this at several points around the window and its quite similar to the other side.
Once the hardtop is off will need to recheck with the soft top.
Back to the open road