Has anyone any experience of removing the glass door windows and electrical mechanism for cleaning etc?
Mine is sticking internittantly half up/down and no amount of lubrication is helping at all.
It isn’t too difficult; I removed the complete contents of the door recently to replace the winder-cables (one of which had snapped).
First unscrew the door handle (held on by three philips-head screws) and then pop-off the speaker cover.
The hardest/messiest part is removing the plastic waterproof cover that sits beneath the door-card (the door-card itself just pops off as it uses “push” type fasteners to fix to the door). The waterproof cover is held on by a thick black ‘mastic’ like adhesive, which you don’t want to get on your clothes!
Once you have the door card and the plastic cover off (you will need to unscrew the three screws holding the door handle to the door to completely remove the plastic) you’ll see the relevant bolts holding the window mechanism in; if you just want to clean the inside (without removing the winder mechanism) wind the window down to about half-way, you will see three phillips-head screws which hold the actual glass to the winder. Before removing these, you will need to unbolt the two “stops” at the top of the door (these ‘stop’ the window from going up too far) each is held in by one bolt.
Once the window stops are removed, you can unscrew the three phillips head screws (get a helper to hold/support the window whilst you do this) and then once unscrewed, you should be able to lift the window out of the door in one piece. You may also want to mark the positions of the screws, but if you are going to remove the whole mechanism, you’ll need to properly realign the window afterwards.
Note I would recommend Rod’s Enthusiasts manual (that’s what I used!) although the manual does say to remove the plastic rain-rail at the top edge of the door, I found I didn’t need to do this, the window came out with a bit of waggling!
Once you have the glass out, the winder-mechanism is held in with two bolts at the top and two bolts on the bottom of the door (underneath) which need to be undone. The cables (two - one up, one down) are clipped to the inside of the door panel; make sure you note where the clips go, or if you put them in wrong, the cables will foul the winder when you put it all back together!
The actual motor is bolted to the door with three bolts; once these are removed, you should be able to get the motor out (remember to unplug the wiring!) and waggle it out of the door. The motor feels like it won’t come past the bottom of the window guide, but it does with a bit of juggling. You can then remove the motor and winder in one assembly for cleaning/adjustment.
Refitting is the reverse of removal; just fit the motor first (don’t forget to re-plug its connector-wire!) then the winder mechanism, then the glass. Leave all bolts finger tight until you’re confident that it is all working, and that the window alignment is correct (otherwise an incorrectly aligned window can also cause binding, which then of course causes the window to ‘stick’ again.
You’ll need a decent socket set, a phillips-head screwdriver and some lithium-based grease (for greasing the cables and the window-channel) and I used white spirit to clean the gunk out of the window guide when everything was out of the car.
Total job time about an hour per side.
Try Holts Vinyl and Rubber Lubricant spray. Made a fantastic difference to my windows after trying all the usual lithium grease, cleaning contacts etc.
Pete