Window Regulator Repair, a new approach

[Dr OnHolliday]

My driver's side regulator stopped working. The apparent options via Samba were:
1. buy new
2. buy used passenger side and use its gear assembly

After buying an incorrect used passenger regulator (shaft too short, duh), I ended up taking Door #3 (and so far it works bitchin'):

Take your broken assembly and finish breaking off the zink alloy casting. Also remove the spring, as its unnecessary. [Side note: I have no idea WTF the zinc part does - I see it allows a few degrees play for the window crank, but so what??]

This is what you are left with:

Weld the 3 pieces you have left, together. Jig these up so the 3 parts don't move during welding - you want the gear to run true. A nut and C-clamp used carefully worked for us. Notice we didn't weld on the bearing surfaces of the assembly!!

How to reassemble? First, I put 1 brass washer on each side of the welded gear assembly to take up the excess play and keep the gear in the middle of the cable track. Just some brass washers I bought at Home Depot and filed to fit.

I thought welding was no good, as it may boil out the grease I put in, and I might want to disassemble this thing for some reason. So at Home Depot I looked for rivets - no luck. They do have 1/4" aluminum rod though. So I drilled the 6 holes in the sheet metal pieces to 1/4". Then I filed down a piece of the rod so it went in the holes (chuck in drill press and file with mill file or bastard file). Then I cut short pieces of my filed rod for rivets. I used a 5 lb sledge hammer head as an anvil to back up the rivet on one side, and a ball peen hammer to expand and peen over the other end of my aluminum rivets. Then same-o on peening the other end some more.

You can see an extra rivet laying on the assembly in this pic:

Note the "1965" stamped on this plate...

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1965 Type 1 sunroof Baja / about 70k miles on self-rebuilt '74 1600 and counting / SP heads and aftermarket valve keepers / non-doghouse shroud with external cooler and filter / 1.5 qt extended sump / Weber 32/36 DFAV progressive carb / 009 dist with Pertronix / 1.25 ratio rockers and ball adjusters / 1.5" stainless steel J-pipes and carbon steel baja exhaust

[Pruneman99]

Interesting. Let us know how it holds up. I've been looking for some cold rivets without having to buy 6,000 of them at once. Never thought of making some from AL rod. Nice idea.

[Caanrolo]

Estas 2 piezas moviles, tienen la funcion de bloquear el vidrio para que no se pueda bajar ni subir a fuerza, unicamente con la manibela. Al intwmtar bajar el vidrios haciendo fuerza directamente, el resprte se expande y actua como freno, y al utilizar la perilla, el resorte se contrae permitiendo mover el vidrio. Al eliminarlos el vidrio se podra bajar facilmente incluso con los baches de la carretera.

[Schnitzelfuss]

Translation: “These two movable parts have the function of locking the window so that it cannot be lowered or raised by force, only with the crank. When attempting to lower the window by force, the spring expands and acts as a brake, and when using the crank, the spring contracts, allowing the window to move. Removing them will allow the window to be lowered easily, even over bumps in the road.”