illumined

One thing I'm intending to do at some point is have the power windows on my car refitted. One thing I've found is that the current window motor/actuator currently in there seems to be grossly underpowered and undersized. The window goes up and down really slow and, worse, eventually the plastic rollers in the actuator will pop off, causing the window to get stuck. This happened once on the drivers side already and I haven't opened the passenger side in a couple of months because it's on it's last legs. Being a coupe the window itself is large and very heavy, weighing in at nearly 20 pounds however I get the impression the motor/actuator setup is designed for a 4 door. I'm looking to have something more suitable installed.

So my questions are:

1.) Is this a problem endemic to all the 2 door H bodies or just from the 1988 model year?

2.) If it is endemic, then what would be a good refit option?

Lady72nRob71

Providing these are the correct regulators, it sounds like the window itself is binding up due to misalignment of guides, dried lube, or accumulated dirt and crap. Rollers popping off leads me this is a big cause. The windows worked well when new and a counterspring took care of the weight. The motors themselves have grease in them and the grease turns to gum after this many years. They can be removed (with lots of care!), disassembled and cleaned if needed.

Allan R

I would love to see how this is done. I have 4 PW motors in storage that I can practice on; maybe start a thread on reconditioning?

illumined

Interesting, I'll have it checked out as soon as I can, possibility as soon as next week (the person who told me this stuff originally were not my regular mechanic btw).

Lady72nRob71

I saw a picture thread or video on this somewhere long ago - made good sense, as the worm and drive gear were trying to slog through dried grease like tar. I have seen this in vintage oscillating fan gearboxes, too.
Clean well, burnish the commutator, relube and good for another 30 years.
If you have parts and spare time, then I say give it a shot!
I have a full set of regs and motors for my future wagon that I need to restore. Just no time to do it though...

rocketraider

It's a common problem on these year cars. Buddy bought a 1988 coupe off the showroom floor and it was back in for PW repairs less than 2 months later. And it was in every few months after that till he got tired of it and traded the car. I've known others who had H-body coupes and experienced the same mess.

I'm pretty sure these use that flexible tape drive actuator, which is great for light use and weight savings, but doesn't pan out too well in real-world use.

illumined

I got it back today and man, what a difference the cleaning and relubing/regreasing made. The passenger side is a little bit slower than the driver side for some reason, but it is far more usable now than it was. The drivers side works like it's brand new.

As it turns out the motor and actuator setup are not the originals (but they do fit correctly), but evidently there's been extensive work done previously on both of them and has an extraordinary number of screws holding everything together.