electric window motor?

CAe24 · Post by **CAe24** » Sun May 22, 2011 9:18 pm

how do get to the window motor in the front driver door so I can swap it out with a better one?

CAe24 · Post by **CAe24** » Mon May 23, 2011 2:39 pm

... it opens and closes but its jumpy so you have to keep pressing the button for the window to close or open all the way. Does this sound like an electrical issue or a motor issue? I have another shark so I was just gonna take the motor out of that one, but not sure how

Chris Wright · Post by **Chris Wright** » Mon May 23, 2011 4:49 pm

If you press the window button all of the way down and the window starts to move but stops and then you release and try again with the same results, try pressing only part way down, just until the window moves, and hold the switch there. If this allows the window to continuously keep moving, then there is a problem with the switch. Swap it out with one of the switches in the center console for a back window that works.

If the window moves continuously but is still straining to go up, you may need to remove the door panel to grease the window mechanism.
viewtopic.php?t=2554

Let use know if that helps of if you still need info on the motor.

kronus · Post by **kronus** » Mon May 23, 2011 5:27 pm

It's also fairly easy to take apart and clean the window switches. The bezel pops off with a bit of force, at which point you will see several brass rockers. These gets covered in soot because every time they make contact, they spark, so after about 20 years they'll get unreliable. Take apart, clean off the soot, scrub them a bit with steel wool and reassemble.

Brucey · Post by **Brucey** » Mon May 23, 2011 5:54 pm

if you do decide to remove the motors do be aware that this is a pig of a job for the front motors. I posted on this a while back and so have others.

As per other posts above the switch or the mechanism are more likely sources of trouble.

cheers

nsxguy7 · Post by **nsxguy7** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 5:03 am

excellent post and thank you. I just bought an 83 6er in good shape, just needs struts and power windows not working. the latter was an excellent bargaining chip as the owner knocked $800 off the asking price for that reason. I followed the instructions on this post, and cleaned the switches. The drivers window now works perfectly, but I cannot disengage the allen head on the emergency octagon piece for manually operating the window on the passenger side. I turned it many times in both directions, but it appears to be stripped. My best instincts tell me not to attempt to free it by drilling it out. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance...

Chris Wright · Post by **Chris Wright** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 9:00 pm

nsxguy7 wrote:excellent post and thank you. I just bought an 83 6er in good shape, just needs struts and power windows not working. the latter was an excellent bargaining chip as the owner knocked $800 off the asking price for that reason. I followed the instructions on this post, and cleaned the switches. The drivers window now works perfectly, but I cannot disengage the allen head on the emergency octagon piece for manually operating the window on the passenger side. I turned it many times in both directions, but it appears to be stripped. My best instincts tell me not to attempt to free it by drilling it out. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance...

Yes, don't drill it out. You will have to pull the door cards to get to the window motor.

Window alignment and a look inside the door:
http://www.normgrills.net/bcg/Body_Inte ... or24982937

A look at the window motors themselves:
viewtopic.php?t=12107
________________________

Getting the Panel off (passengers side shown):
The door panel consists of three separate panels.

1) The top door sill is attached with a screw at either end that are only accessible with the door open. Unscrew the lock button to provide clearance to remove the sill after the grab handle has been removed, but it is not necessary to remove the sill to remove the other panels.

2) Next is a flexible flat leather covered cardboard panel that slips under the top sill but has no connection to it. It only has two nylon snaps (front and back, yellow arrow), to hold it once the bottom "pocket" has been removed.

3) Lastly is the large plastic "pocket" panel. This mounts over the center leather panel with four screws, several nylon snaps along the bottom and rear edges and an "L" shaped tab at the front. The rear edge of the panel must be rotated away from the door in-order to disengage the "L" shaped tab at the front.

Start by removing the Grab handle:
Remove the mirror switch (or blanking plate) from the top of the Grab handle by carefully prying it out with the edge of a sharp blade. Underneath you will find two screws, remove them (don't drop them into the door!). Flip up the door on the side pocket and rotate the grab handle to the inside to disengage the tabs on the bottom of the grab handle from the slots in the lower pocket.

Remove the trim around the door handle by first sliding it towards the back of the car and then away from the door. Be careful, the trim piece has 4 "L" shaped feet that engage slots in the door and can break easily.

______

Remove the 4 screws at the top edge of the lower Pocket panel, 2 are under the flip up door. Now you can use a pry-bar to carefully pop the nylon snaps out of their holes in the door (they stay with the pocket). Start at the rear top of the panel and work your way down and then forward along the bottom. You then must rotate the rear edge of the panel away from the door in-order to disengage the "L" shaped tab at the front from it's slot in the door. Careful, these tabs at the front can break off.

__________

<img src="http://bigcoupe.com/ims/pic.php?u=21GvpX2&i=409" border="0">

Brucey · Post by **Brucey** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 7:20 pm

re the screw; this is threaded into the plastic hex piece so that it cannot very easily unscrew outwards, but came come disengaged if turned too far inwards (clockwise) which sounds like what you have done. Three turns against resistance is usually plenty to disengage the mechanism, unless the motor is further away from the door skin than normal for some reason.

At this point (i.e. when the window can be moved manually) the shoulder on the plastic hex piece is pushed up against the inner door skin; it would otherwise be pushed off the gearbox.

Usually it is possible to re-engage the screw in situ, should it beome disengaged.

1. Check that the screw is still visible and the 3mm hex is centred in the hex piece.

2. Check that the hex and the screw are not tilted.

3. Now turn the screw slowly clockwise. You should feel a little 'clunk' at one point each turn. Right after this clunk, start to turn the screw acw instead. If you are lucky the threads should pick up again.

Be aware that there will only be 'helping' spring pressure pushing the screw back towards you provided the motor is mounted normally (i.e. the mounting bolts are not all loose) and (usually once the screw is started) the internal mechanism is actually engaged.

Note that the plastic piece has a brass insert which carries the screw thread, which is a fairly chunky M6 IIRC. I guess it could be damaged badly enough that the screw thread won't pick up again easily, but you would be unlucky to damage it to the point that it cannot be repaired.

As you will by now have realised, two of the window motor bolts are easily accessed, the third rather less so. It occurs to me that if all three bolts are slackened, it may be possible to use an M6 bottoming tap in situ to help clean the threads up on the brass insert. The 'difficult' bolt may need to be slackened least if attempting this route.

good luck

cheers

nsxguy7 · Post by **nsxguy7** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 4:58 am

thanks for all your time, advice, and info, but...I tried everything you said and no dice- I just cannot get it to do anything except spin. What is my next course of action? Remove the motor? And once the motor is out, will it be any easier to get it? thanks....

Brucey · Post by **Brucey** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 1:55 pm

once the motor is out everything will just come apart very easily and you should be able to fix it, no worries. But getting the motor out is not very easy.....

cheers

nsxguy7 · Post by **nsxguy7** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 9:08 pm

Wow, you werent kidding about that one....took me about and hour to get the motor out..

That done, i slid the threaded piece out the backside and ran a tap through. I had it all back together in about an hour

. Sure is great to have all four windows working again...many many thanks for the tips and advice...!

Brucey · Post by **Brucey** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 6:16 pm

-glad you got it fixed!

cheers

Chris Wright · Post by **Chris Wright** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 6:56 pm

Any photo's?

Always take photo's

derekal · Post by **derekal** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 1:39 pm

I have the opposite problem to nsxguy7 whereby I can't engage the emergency octagon piece for manually operating the window on the passenger side. I want to do this to check the mechanism before embarking on removing the motor as the window is not working - there is voltage reaching the motor and I can hear a small click from the motor when I press the switch but nothing budges.
I have turned the hex head fully clockwise which has pushed the emergency octagon piece right against the inner door panel but the emergency piece does not enage the motor when rotated.

Is there anything else I should check or is it time to start removing motor?

Brucey · Post by **Brucey** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 2:49 pm

hmm, that sounds odd... I wonder if the spur gear on the gearbox is actually engaged with the mechanism?

Does the glass move up and down if you just grab it and pull/push it?

I guess if you take it all to bits you'll find out what is going on but it could be a lot of work for nothing....

cheers

tschultz · Post by **tschultz** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 7:52 pm

As stated above the octagon could be stripped or misaligned if not engaging.

Somebody could have taken it outr before. Best bet would be to take apart the panel and pull out the motor.

All of the motors are in fact interchangeable from what I have found (between front/rear windows, I don't think side to side). The difference in early and late models is the electrical connections.

It's a pain to do I did it 3 times, and at that point it goes a bit quicker.

Chris Wright · Post by **Chris Wright** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 4:00 am

This may be of interest:
viewtopic.php?t=12107

derekal · Post by **derekal** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 8:43 pm

Well the glass definitely does not want to budge if I just grab and pull/push either. I think it's probably time to remove motor and see whats going on. Thanks all for your advice and I'll let you know how I get on.

derekal · Post by **derekal** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 1:08 pm

OK ? I got the chance to remove the motor yesterday which went very smoothly thanks to Brucey?s write up . The emergency octagon piece was indeed stripped ? someone previous must have forced it without disengaging the slip clutch fully. The slip clutch is working fine allowing the gearbox spur gear to rotate freely when disengaged.
I?ve tested the unit by connecting to the opposite door?s power supply, as this is working, and it seems to be seized ? just the same small click noise from the motor when the switch is pressed up or down.
Before removing the motor from the gearbox to take a closer look, is it worth spraying something like silicone lubricant into the motor to see if that frees it up or will that do more harm than good?

Brucey · Post by **Brucey** » Mon Apr 16, 2012 2:20 pm

I wouldn't bother spraying anything into the motor itself; this will probably just wreck the motor brushes. If you can do, try trading the motor from a spare, or one of the rear window motors. This will help identify what the trouble is. Unfortunately you need the motor mounted on a gearbox of some kind to test it.

The gearbox should turn freely when the motor is out BTW.

If the gearbox is jammed inside, it may not be possible to fix it, in which case a replacement is a good idea.

You can open up the gearbox as per my post and this may at least satisfy your curiosity as to the problem, even if you can't fix it.

cheers

derekal · Post by **derekal** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:26 pm

Well problem solved without having to source a replacment motor / gearbox - thanks again Brucey for the brilliant write up - I've included a few photos here as I ended up dismantling further. After removing the motor, it was soon obvious that the gearbox was the issue. I opened the gearbox and it was evident that water had made it's way in at some stage and corroded enough of the metal parts to seize it. I bought the car with this electric window not working, so I wasn't sure how long it had been out of operation. See photo 1 - it was really gunked up. I was able to competely dismantle the internal bits by removing the surclip on the external spur gear - photo 2. One half of the clutch sits into 4 coupling rubbers mounted in the ring gear - photo 3. The area of corrosion preventing motion was the shaft surface for the ring gear - it took a bit of persuading to get the gear off it - photo 4. I used a bit of sandpaper to clean this area and a combination of wire brush and file for the clutch. Photo 5 shows the cleaned and greased inners. I used some gasket sealer before replacing both the cover plate and motor to try and prevent this happening again as my window seal isn't great!

derekal · Post by **derekal** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:27 pm

....... and photo 5

Brucey · Post by **Brucey** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 11:16 pm

nice work! In photo #5 it looks 'like a bought one' !!!

cheers

Utern · Post by **Utern** » Mon Sep 26, 2016 7:38 pm

derekal wrote:....... and photo 5

Hi Derekal, I am in the process of breaking down the power window gear and saw your post. I am wondering did you use a puller to take the exterior gear off the spline to get at the plastic gear and bits inside the power window gear? Unfortunately you pictures are no longer available so I cant follow what it was you did. My motor is seized like yours was and I'd like to fix it rather than replace it.

Cheers Utern

derekal · Post by **derekal** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 7:29 pm

Hi Utern,

Apologies for not replying sooner... for some reason my notifications were switched off - there's a good chance you've sorted this out at this stage, but for what its worth, here's the photos again in a .pdf.
I definitely didn't have to use a puller to get the exterior gear off - pretty sure I used a punch and carefully hammered the shaft through the gear.

BMW 635csi Window Motor.pdf: (402.26 KiB) Downloaded 369 times

All the best,

Derek

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electric window motor?

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