Stuck Electric Window Regulator

The car: 1989 SAAB 900 T8

About a week ago, my driver's side window stuck closed. I didn't think too much of it and then took a week off sick! :) Yesterday, I drove the car again ... And ... What d'ya know ... The window worked again ... Until later, when it stuck OPEN!

I got home and started to investigate. The relay under the back seat clicks and there is a current to the wiring at the window regulator (between 10 and

12 volts, depending on how well grounded my multimeter is) on both wires (one for down, one for up).

Okay, so the actual motor is broken. How do I get the damn motor off? The Haynes assumes that the window is fully up, or down (?) and the glass can be removed ... I undid the four bolts holding the toothed mechanism to the door and with the aid of a companion kind of jiggled the mechanism up while they pulled the glass up. We're unable to remove the mechanism from the door, due to the fact that the glass is in the way. I tried undoing the final two bolts that (seem to) hold the motor to the toothed mechanism, but again, it doesn't want to come loose.

Once I have the motor off (or rather, if I get the motor off) and get it working again or buy a replacement, can the motor be re-fitted anywhere on the toothed mechanism? What I'm really asking is what is the procedure for re-fitting the motor to the toothed mechanism?

I'd appreciate some words of advice from people who have "been there ... Done that" - thanks in advance.

Reply to
Paul Halliday
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Paul,

I've replaced one of these before, although it wasn't completely frozen in place. I found it to be a fairly simple job with the help of the Bentley manual. I think you will have to remove the glass to get the motor out. Try spraying some WD-40 down onto the motor sprocket; maybe you'll be able to get a little motion out of it. In my case, the sprocket was badly rusted.

Here's a summary of the procedure as detailed in Bentley (should be similar to your Haynes, but I don't have a Haynes to compare with):

Disconnect battery, remove door trim/moisture barrier. Remove weatherstrip spring clips & interior weather strip. Disconnect motor electrical connector (if you can reach it anyway). Get someone to hold the glass and remove the screws that hold the glass onto the regulator (at the bottom of the pane) (I think you need the window to be down to expose the screws through the hole in the door). Then take out the glass (this takes some creative manipulations). Then remove the four bolts which hold the regulator assembly to the door, and take the whole thing out through the hole in the door.

Then just take the motor off and replace it. I replaced it with a new (used) motor which has been working well ever since.

Hope this helps.

John

Reply to
John B

in article slrnccp7ov.abd.rotten_NOSPAM snipped-for-privacy@oragam.example.com, John B at rotten_NOSPAM snipped-for-privacy@ccil.org wrote on 13/06/2004 19:38:

Thanks John - that works very nicely with this article (the PDF) on this page:

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Unfortunately, I can't get the motor to budge at all. I'm half inclined to smash the glass, replace the motor (which I can get a brand new one by tomorrow morning) and blame it all on football violence (what with having a Swedish car, eh?) and leaving the last part of the job to our friends at Autoglass :)

At the mo', I'm stripped down to the bare door. I just can't get enough swing on the toothed mechanism (with the motor attached) to get the thing out of the door. Grrr! I'm sure there's a "trick" to it somewhere - I know my garage could fix it!

Paul

1989 900 Turbo S
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Reply to
Paul Halliday

You probably just need to replace the motor, rather than the mechanism they sell at that URL-- if you already knew that, then please disregard this sentence :)

Hmm, that's annoying. Perhaps you could try prying it against part of the door while also toggling the switch in the corresponding direction?

Yep, there probably is some trick that would work...

John

Reply to
John B

Paul, unless the regulator is full dropped, you will have a lot of difficulty getting the regulator and motor out.

See if you can get the pump pliers onto the portion of sprocket not on the regulator quadrant, see if you can turn it to by hand. Or even maybe try to wedge a old socket on, something like one of the pin drive type things might work.

You need to lower it unbolt the window pane, and raise the glass out of the way, then lower the rest of the window. I used strips of gaffer tape over the top of the frame to hold the window up.

With the regulator fully lowered you just unbolt it and remove it, then undo the motor.

Is this any different?

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Reply to
MeatballTurbo

in article snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net, MeatballTurbo at snipped-for-privacy@bouncing-czechs.com wrote on 14/06/2004 08:24:

I've kind of figured that one :)

I've had no luck turning it by hand so far, but I'm going to look at some tools tomorrow.

Yup, but I need to lower the window first :( It's seriously stuck! Are you saying I can just detach the glass, tape it in place (in the frame) and then try working the shelf down? There might be enough room to manoeuvre the mechanism behind the glass. I'll take a look at that too tomorrow. BTW, where did you get the motor from (if you needed a replacement, of course)? PFS are selling for about 60 quid, but I've yet to try the usual used parts outlets ... Partly coz I've not got the damn motor out yet to see what's wrong with it.

Thanks for the reply,

Paul

Reply to
Paul Halliday

A mechanic pulled my replacement (which was in very good condition) from a wreck. He charged me $80 (US) for it. Not sure if that was a good price or not. Nor am I sure what the exchange rate is these days.

John

Reply to
John B

In article , snipped-for-privacy@blueyonder.co.uk spouted forth into alt.autos.saab...

I unbolted the shelf from the quadrant/regulator arms. Then I could push it up and use loads of gaffer tape to hold it to get space.

My motor was fine, it was the quadrant that was buggered. I got a quadrant repair kit from a place that has closed down since.

Dare I say it

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Malbrad in huddersfield. I'm sure he must have one or two tucked away amongst the sveral lockups of dismantled 900's he has.

Reply to
MeatballTurbo

in article snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net, MeatballTurbo at snipped-for-privacy@bouncing-czechs.com wrote on 15/06/2004 18:39:

Why not? Cool - thanks for that. They other guy in Huddersfield is pretty good for spares too, albeit a little lacking in customer focus :) I'm too tired to look into it tonight - probably end up the weekend now unless I really pull my finger out. Thanks again.

Paul

Reply to
Paul Halliday

No worries. Glad to help. You offered enough advice when I was looking to buy mine.

Reply to
MeatballTurbo

in article BCF2061F.FA60% snipped-for-privacy@blueyonder.co.uk, Paul Halliday at snipped-for-privacy@blueyonder.co.uk wrote on 13/06/2004 13:24:

RH window won't do up or down (not to mention stuck, DOWN!)

Okay, the motor is out. I gave the entire mechanism with the window attached a damn good jiggle and the window support became visible. I unbolted the window, removed the inner window padding and removed the glass. I could then move the mechanism and motor enough to get at all three bolts (yes, more than just the two I thought).

With the motor out, I rigged up some wires to test the motor. Given a live current to either terminal while the other is grounded actuated the motor in either direction - good, so the motor isn't broken ... Back to testing the wires - 10V +/- depending on the direction the switch is depressed when the wires are plugged together. I'm talking about the Red/White and Black/White wires that are inside the door and go to the motor. These connect to Red/Yellow and Black/Yellow through a connector block just inside the engine bay.

Hmmm - okay, next I find which wire corresponds to which direction and ground the other wire to the chassis. Voltage passed (again around 10V +/-), but when I ran a resistance test against the chassis, it came back bad. Essentially, the motor is not grounded when current is applied to it. I put the window back together and located the down wire, spiked that and ran to ground. I could then get the window up to the top. Great, I suppose :) I tried running a new ground from the relay, but ran through too many fuses so I kind of gave up on that line of attack.

Upon re-inspection of the wiring diagrams, I glean from the "later" model diagram that this area grounds to point E4 - between the handbrake and the ignition switch. Is this right? Given that the passenger side window works fine, I'm presuming that the problem is on a ground wire from the driver's side switch. I've given up for tonight, but am I on the right lines here? How do I get at that ground point? I don't really want to bodge it by just snipping the wires and running new grounds.

Again, input from "been there, done that people" would be very much appreciated. TIA.

Paul

1989 900 Turbo S
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Reply to
Paul Halliday

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