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Mon Mar 29, 2010 7:28 pm

Hello,

After an intensive search of this Forum to address a Power Window issue that I had been experiencing, I found a gap in the literature on this subject. This is the reason for this write-up. Some of the terminology will be incorrect and some of the illustrations will be out of focus; I am NOT a professional mechanic, nor am I in this for pleasure, I just couldn’t find a write up for this on TheSamba and wanted to roll down my window. I could not rationalize spending $200, (insane), on new window motors and I know that I am not the only one with this problem. This post is purely meant to fill the hole in the documentation regarding this commonly malfunctioning and rather expensive to replace part.
Ok... with the lawyer talk out of the way, let’s get started.

Get the door panel off, it should be straightforward enough. Be careful not to rip the plastic keepers from the panel.

This is where you will begin. The vertical rail that the window holder rolls up and down on needs to come out. There are two bolts that hold this piece to the door, the one you see here and one on the underside of the door too.

There are also two that hold the window in the guide that runs up and down this track; these must be removed before the vertical rail can be maneuvered from the door. This can be difficult depending on where the window is. The glass will stay in the door; you can wedge it up with the pull handle.

Once you get the regulator out of the door this guide rail and slider mechanism is easier to understand.

Mine had popped free from the cable that pulls the window holder along this channel piece.

The rail has plastic points held on with plastic keepers at the top and bottom that the cable runs through; both of mine had broken these, one at the top, (white), and the other at the bottom, (grey). The top was badly worn. Anyway, when I was done rewinding the cable inside the “wheelhouse” of the motor, I used a metal bolt to hold them in place. The cable is under A LOT of tension, do not be surprised with this tension… it’s supposed to be this way.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is the “wheelhouse”, and if either of the plastic points pop the tension is released and the cable gets bound up in this “W/H” and stops the motor from winding up the cable. Rewinding this cable in the W/H does NOT fix the motor. We’ll go through that though.

As a side note, I had two slightly different motors, one with a grey wheel and the other with a white wheel.
Pop the W/H cover off and pull the plugs that hold the worm gear in place to get the wheel out.

Tack out the cable guide tubes the same way as the plugs that hold the worm gear in place. The cable should be a contiguous piece that is comprised of the tubes, wheel, rail, and cable as a single unit, remove all of this as it will be in your way. Put everything in a Ziploc to keep it clean and put it somewhere safe for now. We will come back to this later.
Let’s start the motor. Pull the “W/H” from the motor; this will be a tight spot. A 10mm socket and a flat-tip worked out well for me.

You will need a star-tip screwdriver to remove the plate that sits between the “W/H” and the motor insides.

Under this plate is a plastic piece that holds the brushes that run along the center of the motor. The metal plate houses the bearing that holds the center shaft behind a fingered keeper. Water damage can freeze this up; there are two, top and bottom.

The top bearing:

The bottom:

The bottom was the frozen one on my motor.

All of these point MUST be clean and freely spin on the shaft and in both top and bottom bearing keepers. There are two wire clips that hold the magnets that you see in the motor housing. They need to come out and the entire thing needs cleaned and lubed up before we reassemble this.

Fine sandpaper and a wire wheel were used to remove any corrosion from the shaft where the bearings ride and to clean up the track that the brushes run.

Now it’s time to start putting everything back together. Fun. The hardest part here is getting that bottom bearing into the fingered keeper at the bottom of the motor housing, Be sure to lift the fingers enough to slip the bearing down inside it or you will have bigger problems. The top is much easier to work with. These bearings must go in first, before reassembly.

I think that the brass bottom one is purposely so… corrosion resistant?

Starting from the bottom of the motor, (with the lubed-up brass bearing inserted), slip the main shaft down into the bearing and retainer. Then slip the plastic plat with the brushes down onto the shaft. This can be tricky to get the brushes to squeeze up into their places while caressing them over their tracks on the main shaft. Be patient here.

Now we can replace the metal plate that holds the top bearing, (be sure to lube the top of the shaft last to keep grease from getting on the brush tracks), that we first removed to expose the motor’s guts.

Bolt the housing back together in reverse.

Ok… you’re done with the motor, (this was the easy part). Now go plug it in and watch it spin.

Slap yourself on the back and say something encouraging to yourself. Have a beer; this is not over.
We will rewind the “Wheel House” and set the tension, and reattach the end points more securely in the next post. I would rather do this rebuild than to sit here at my desk. I will post the rest as I have time.

Thanks for reading…

Damian

Mon Mar 29, 2010 7:36 pm

Your timing couldn't be better. Mine crapped out last week.
Thanks.
I love this place.

Mon Mar 29, 2010 7:37 pm

great Job =D> =D> =D>

Mon Mar 29, 2010 7:38 pm

Nice write-up! Thanks!
This is on my Spring To-Do List

Mon Mar 29, 2010 7:49 pm

Thank you gentlemen 8) Some one had to do it. TheSamba has been up since 2000; ten years was just way too long to wait for this.

I will finish up with this later, enjoy!

Tue Mar 30, 2010 7:12 am

Fantastic post! One question: what would be the best grease to use for the motor bearings as well as for the regulator assembly? White lithium grease, moly wheel-bearing grease, or ??

Thanks!

Tue Mar 30, 2010 10:06 am

Busryder wrote: Thank you gentlemen 8) Some one had to do it. TheSamba has been up since 2000; ten years was just way too long to wait for this.

I will finish up with this later, enjoy!

Nice write up.. I just did my power windows, I started about 3 months ago..mines not my everyday car so I had time. mine was combination of problems, bad wiring in door jams so I removed dash took all wires out redid those then stilll didn't work.. tracked it to bad switches and motors and cable off its track...I did whole thing rebuilt motors redid regulators soldiered new switches in work great now...

Tue Mar 30, 2010 10:25 am

Change your window scrapers while you are at it. They are not cheap but are worth it. A worn scraper allows too much water to enter the inside of the door and cause corrosion to the auto door lock actuator and the power window mechanism and motor.

Tue Mar 30, 2010 10:27 am

Really nice picture tutorial.
Thanks for sharring.

dylan

Tue Mar 30, 2010 6:19 pm

Hey Busryder:

Now that you posted this excellent power window repair item, I may just use stock VW power windows after all instead of aftermarket when I retrofit my syncor westy for power windows.

Thanks for the effort!

Tue Mar 30, 2010 7:07 pm

I've taken both mine apart and cleaned them out/regreased them, it has made a world of difference (one wouldn't even work if the temp was below freezing and both were slow).

You can get the motors out without pulling the whole regulator with a little manipulation

Fri Apr 02, 2010 9:57 am

I couldn't tell from the picture--is it possible to flip a magnet over when putting it back without realizing it? If so it might be good to point out to folks that they need to make sure not to reverse the polarity.

Mon Apr 05, 2010 8:08 am

One of the things I did to mine years ago when I first had trouble was drill drain holes in the bottom of the motor housings. As can be seen on yours from all the corrosion, these things fill with water, this is true even with good window scrapers.

Mon Apr 12, 2010 10:30 am

Anyone have something like this for Manual windows?

Mon Apr 12, 2010 12:33 pm

Plastic guides, top and bottom, were you able to get these replacement parts 037-349-001? If so where and how much?

Wed Apr 28, 2010 11:58 pm

I am sorry Gentlemen...

But I have not yet had the time to add information, nor comments, to this thread. And for this, I do apologize.

I will do so as time permits.

Damian

Sat May 15, 2010 11:45 am

Ok, I just finished up doing this. It's actually quicker and easier to get the mess out of the door and back in than it looks. Don't get me wrong, it's a PITA, but it's worth it.
My issue was just a stuck motor. I couldn't even get it all apart. I shot some PB blaster in there and then some LPS3 to keep the moisture out.
Works great now.

I would recommend this as a PM to anybody who has a spare hour or 2. Greasing the cable and track made a huge difference. You could even do that with the assembly in the door.

Thanks again to the OP.

Tue May 25, 2010 9:14 pm

Thank you so much for posting this write up Busryder! I just replaced my weak passenger side motor and will refurbish it. I did not disassemble the regulator mechanism/gearing, as you mention, but merely cleaned it up and regreased, along with the cable and track. Unfortunately one of the white plastic parts is broken on my regulator, but still functional for now. If anyone can suggest a source for an OEM replacement, I'd be very grateful.

Once again, thanks to the OP. This is an easy, but somewhat tedious job.

Wed May 26, 2010 1:35 am

Absolutely PERFECT timing for me as well. Mine driver side window makes a loud clunk clunk clunk noise about 1/2 the way down, then frees up.. Diagnosing tomorrow. I too will post up some pictures if all goes well...

Sat Jul 03, 2010 11:52 pm

Excellent post. I flew down to LA to buy a rust free 87 Vanagon...and the window went clunk during the test drive. I see from the photos that a screw fix will replace the tiny plastic locator part...which is gone on one end. Dust + grease in the regulator = a lot of friction...now for the fix....later next week I have repaired both the small nut that locates the cable in the slider with a permanent epoxy mold and a wheelhouse mod for a stretched cable...pictures soon as I do the final install after all new rubber.