1979 Power window repair

[FRANKLIN]

HAVING TROUBLE REPLACING A BROKEN POWER WINDOW RETURN SPRING. CAN SOMEONE GIVE ME A HEADS-UP INSTALLING THIS SPRING THE CORRECT WAY.

THANKS ALOT,FRANK

[WayneC]

It's been too long ago for me to remember how things go together, and the shop manual isn't much help.

Maybe if you posted some photos it would help jog some folks' minds. How much of the assembly did

you remove... is your mechanism out of the door, or can you see and access the spring with the assembly

still in place?

I vaguely remember taking the entire motor/spring/actuator arm/scissors assembly out of the door to work

on it (I had to replace the motor), but I'm not certain if the window lifting scissors came out with it.... IIRC

I think it did, and I had wedged the (fully up) window at both ends of the door to hold it up before

I removed the bolts from the center pivot and the motor/spring assembly, then the retainers from the

rollers of 3 arms of the scissors mechanism to pop it free it from it's tracks, then it was a matter of

snaking the whole assembly out of the rectangular access hole in the bottom of the door, articulating

various arms to get one part, then the next, etc, until it was all out of the door... not an easy task.

I guess one concept to keep in mind is that the motor needs an assist in raising the window, so I think

the idea would be that the spring be almost fully compressed (wound) when the window is down, almost

fully free when the window is all the way up (scissors actuator arm at the motor/spring assembly moved

towards the rear of the door).

It might help to take the other door panel off to see how the spring is positioned with the window fully up,

and try to visualize the mirror image of that to picture how the opposite door spring needs to look with the

mechanism scissors in that same position. If you spin the motor in a direction to get the scissors actuator

arm as far towards the spring/motor assembly as possible (eg, towards the front of the door), then attach

the spring (and you may have to pull it's end over to the mount pin, slightly compressing it), then reverse

the electrical leads on the window motor to compress (wind) the spring to the position it was in when you

removed the assembly.

Hopefully someone else has a better memory than mine.

[FRANKLIN]

It's been too long ago for me to remember how things go together, and the shop manual isn't much help.

Maybe if you posted some photos it would help jog some folks' minds. How much of the assembly did

you remove... is your mechanism out of the door, or can you see and access the spring with the assembly

still in place?

I vaguely remember taking the entire motor/spring/actuator arm/scissors assembly out of the door to work

on it (I had to replace the motor), but I'm not certain if the window lifting scissors came out with it.... IIRC

I think it did, and I had wedged the (fully up) window at both ends of the door to hold it up before

I removed the bolts from the center pivot and the motor/spring assembly, then the retainers from the

rollers of 3 arms of the scissors mechanism to pop it free it from it's tracks, then it was a matter of

snaking the whole assembly out of the rectangular access hole in the bottom of the door, articulating

various arms to get one part, then the next, etc, until it was all out of the door... not an easy task.

I guess one concept to keep in mind is that the motor needs an assist in raising the window, so I think

the idea would be that the spring be almost fully compressed (wound) when the window is down, almost

fully free when the window is all the way up (scissors actuator arm at the motor/spring assembly moved

towards the rear of the door).

It might help to take the other door panel off to see how the spring is positioned with the window fully up,

and try to visualize the mirror image of that to picture how the opposite door spring needs to look with the

mechanism scissors in that same position. If you spin the motor in a direction to get the scissors actuator

arm as far towards the spring/motor assembly as possible (eg, towards the front of the door), then attach

the spring (and you may have to pull it's end over to the mount pin, slightly compressing it), then reverse

the electrical leads on the window motor to compress (wind) the spring to the position it was in when you

removed the assembly.

Hopefully someone else has a better memory than mine.

[FRANKLIN]

It's been too long ago for me to remember how things go together, and the shop manual isn't much help.

Maybe if you posted some photos it would help jog some folks' minds. How much of the assembly did

you remove... is your mechanism out of the door, or can you see and access the spring with the assembly

still in place?

I vaguely remember taking the entire motor/spring/actuator arm/scissors assembly out of the door to work

on it (I had to replace the motor), but I'm not certain if the window lifting scissors came out with it.... IIRC

I think it did, and I had wedged the (fully up) window at both ends of the door to hold it up before

I removed the bolts from the center pivot and the motor/spring assembly, then the retainers from the

rollers of 3 arms of the scissors mechanism to pop it free it from it's tracks, then it was a matter of

snaking the whole assembly out of the rectangular access hole in the bottom of the door, articulating

various arms to get one part, then the next, etc, until it was all out of the door... not an easy task.

I guess one concept to keep in mind is that the motor needs an assist in raising the window, so I think

the idea would be that the spring be almost fully compressed (wound) when the window is down, almost

fully free when the window is all the way up (scissors actuator arm at the motor/spring assembly moved

towards the rear of the door).

It might help to take the other door panel off to see how the spring is positioned with the window fully up,

and try to visualize the mirror image of that to picture how the opposite door spring needs to look with the

mechanism scissors in that same position. If you spin the motor in a direction to get the scissors actuator

arm as far towards the spring/motor assembly as possible (eg, towards the front of the door), then attach

the spring (and you may have to pull it's end over to the mount pin, slightly compressing it), then reverse

the electrical leads on the window motor to compress (wind) the spring to the position it was in when you

removed the assembly.

Hopefully someone else has a better memory than mine.

Wayne,

I took the complete window assembly out of the door. After laying it out on my work bench, I dicovered that the main (LIFTING) spring was in two pieces. I located a new spring and installed it with the window at the top location (NOT KNOWING THE ORIGINAL POSSISION). The window works but very slow going up. My question is how do you load that spring? Someone must know the procedure. Thankyou for the feedback. Frank

[WayneC]

Wayne,

I took the complete window assembly out of the door. After laying it out on my work bench, I dicovered that the main (LIFTING) spring was in two pieces. I located a new spring and installed it with the window at the top location (NOT KNOWING THE ORIGINAL POSITION). The window works but very slow going up. My question is how do you load that spring? Someone must know the procedure. Thankyou for the feedback. Frank

Frank, I may be beating this one to death, but no one else has yet answered, so perhaps no one knows the

EXACT procedure, since it's not in the shop manual... the factory itself probably got the assembly from a

vendor. I still think the method I used was to use the motor itself to pre-load the spring.

For this explanation, I am referring to the LF door mechanism because you didn't mention which one you

are working on. If you are working on the RF door, the the description of moving the big gear clockwise

and counter-clockwise need to be reversed. (and, I may even be mixed up myself on the direction of rotation,

but that's the way it appears to work from looking at the parts manual), hopefully you know which direction

the spring you removed was coiled, so you'll know which direction to move the gear to unload or pre-load.

With the motor REMOVED, and the spring off, you can swing that large half-circle gear with the teeth all the

way counter-clockwise, right off the gear that drives it, and beyond (holding the motor/spring frame in a

fixed position)... then find an appropriate position to slip the spring on, swing the half-circle back clockwise

(whilst compressing the spring) until it again engages the drive gear, and then re-attach the motor and apply

12v intermittently to the motor harness, spinning the motor to continue to swing the half-circle to load/compress

the spring and move the arm until, say, the half-circle gear is centered in the assembly or somewhere very

near where it was when you removed the assembly. Put it back in the door, align the pivot arms to the guide

tracks and re-install the arm pins in the rollers.

You may also be able to do this without the motor attached, by manually spinning the motor coupler,

but that will be tedious, and likely impossible with a compressed spring in place. You might also be able

to use an electric drill to spin the worm gear instead of the window motor.

You could even swing the half-circle through several revolutions to pre-load the spring, if need be, although

I doubt that is necessary; you should be able to tell by how closely the coils are compressed; obviously if

you pre-load too much, you cannot move the half-circle gear fully through it's required normal rotation on

the drive gear, so the spring is compressed too much and you need to unload the spring, remove it, back off

a half or full rotation, and re-insert the spring... nor do you want the coil to bind upon itself.... or, compare the

coil spacing to the coil in the other door as a guide to proper compression.

Other reasons for the window working slowly, though, are possibly that it's sticking in the guides and the

rear guide needs to be adjusted, the felt in the guides is deteriorating, or that a roller or two are breaking

down and dragging in the track (or they need lubrication).

PS, I would replace the motor coupler and the rollers with new ones while I had the assembly out, as

preventive maintenance, and lube the gears, tracks, pivots, and other moving/rubbing parts lightly with

white lithium grease.

Edited April 9, 2009 by WayneC