Well...I FINALLY decided to attempt (notice the operative word "attempt"),
to replace the Freakin crappy window regulator on my side of 'Ol Red.
This has been botherin the crap outta me for the past 5 years, but I have done nothing about it, till now. two days ago, went to a junkyard and got one out of another jeep. this one works fine (as far as up-down movement) , still out of vehicle mind you.

Background: my manual window crank works fine when rolling down, but when trying to roll it up, I feel like I am lifting a friggin engine block off the floor, and it grinds like a MO FO. not the window, the regulator.

Now I know I have to drill out four rivets to access the regulator bracket mounting and I have purchased some 1/4"-20 x 1/2" bolts, washers, nuts etc to replace.

My question to anyone out there would be this, Is there any "magic" contortionistic maneuvers I need to perform to get this installed the right way so I don't have this problem again?

Was thinking of duct taping the window glass in the fully closed position as I am removing the regulator to keep the glass from falling as I try to remove the assembly, maybe that will keep the frustration level to a minimum!?

any an all comments welcome!

cpnwrench

 

I have changed regulators on lots of different vehicles do to not liking power windows and swapping to the crank just take the glass out saves a lot of headache when trying to work the regulator in and out

 

I gotta' piece of bailen twine tied to the bracket on the window on my 66 F-260. Comes up out the crack. I can let her down for runing round or pull it up and tie it there, for if the weather aint so fair.

 

First,,,,this will be long, as I want to convey what the root cause was so someone else wont run into this in the future...so please bear with me and enjoy the show!

Well,,, I got the manual window regulator problem fixed.
AND, I also discovered WHY the gears stripped in the handle mechanism!

Two trips to the junkyard tho!

See, there are 7 out of 8 rivets that had to be drilled out. when I took off the door panel,
two where the handle mechanism is, two at the bottom bracket hold down, two at the top bracket holddown, and one rivet on a vertical separator bar within the doorframe. This last one is required to be removed so I could swing the separator bar out of the way to remove the regulator mechanism.
I then used seven 1/2" x 20 bolts with washer and nylock nuts to secure replacement regulator. (they ain't goin anywhere!)

Now, about the regulator, the one I had in the Jeep (its really been about ten years since I had this problem, just never bothered to fix it, but it did annoy the **** outta me!). Well about 10 yrs ago, while jeep was parked someone ran into the jeep driver door and left front fender bashed in. so insurance pays to get fixed, it gets new paint on fender and door, new glass for window etc.etc.
This is where it gets dumb ( on my part).
At first the windows seems to roll up ok, a little hard but manageable.....
didn't think anything of it. fast forward til now........now the friggin thing is nearly impossible to roll up (gear is stripped at handle mech assy, this I know now, after all those years of it getting harder and harder to roll up.).......
So I go to junkyard here and they want 30 bucks, so I say 20, he says no, I say 25, he says no (son-of-a-b*#@*h), I say 30, he say ok...so I go with the yard boy to get the part off a Cherokee (friggin' HUGE jy's in Hell Paso)....I get the part, go on my merry way ( I still haven't pulled my old one off yet, I just know what I am looking for).....well I get back, drill out rivets, take off glass holder piece, take out old mechanism, and install jy one, and begin to re-assemble. Soooo, after I have the bolts in place where rivets were, I begin testing the up and down motion....an I'll be dammed if it is not doing the same thing,,,I mean it rolls up fine to a certain point and then, just like the original one, it is harder than snot to roll up the last 2 inches.....so I pull this one out, and the coil and cord thing which resides within the regulator tube is sprung right out of the tube near the bend point of the regulator...so I am freaking out, cuz I tested the mechanism with some vise grips and ran the regulator up and down full scale several times to ensure I have no stripped gears or binding anywhere. So now I am pissed.....I bring this part back to JY and they don't have another one. CRAP! So I tell the guy gimme my money back, and he does, so I go out the door and just up the road (literally 500yds east),,,and go ask THESE guys if they have one, and so we haggle again (same middle eastern race different family!! hahahaha, kind like my family), anyway, he wants 35,, I don't have 35, I tell him 30 bucks is all I got.
ok.ok.ok., he says.. so I go with another jy boy retriever to look at Jeeps there,,,find one, 3 years newer and know what Jeep did? They got smart! They put REMOVABLE bolts in! How easy is that? anyway I had to show the guy how to take off the door panel and the glass bolt holder and all the removable bolts etc..........
SO I get my new one,,,,30 bucks, bye bye to jy,,,back to the apt.....
begin putting the "new" one into the door.....just like I had taken the old one apart (the original). well, I get this back together again (second regulator now, mind you), and M-F#*@! If it isn't doing the same thing!

So now I stop and say WAIT A FRIGGIN MINUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then it hit me.......there is a flat bar with a hole in it where the glass attachment plastic two-piece donut goes through and gets screwed together to hold the glass in place on the regulator carrier/slide/up-down thingy. well, the "flat bar" (which is about 3-4 inches long) is also attached to the carrier/slde/up-down thingy and when its not attached to the glass it can swivel around on its pivot 360 degrees...! So guess what I figured out!!!!! The repair done on my Jeep 10 yrs ago was F-n wrong! They had installed the glass donut with the flat bar in the south or down position (6 o'clock),,,causing the roll up function of the regulator to make the regulator slide/carrier/up-down thingy to travel around the upper curve part of the regulator causing it to bind up and make it impossible to get the window in the all the way up position, and subsequently over time causing the gears to strip in the handle assembly.........

Soooo...I get the window down to a point where I can take the donut piece off the glass, I then swing the flat bar 180 degrees so it is in the 12 o'clock position, or North position (vs. the 6 o'clock position it was attached at), put the donut back on the glass, secure that real well and test the window.

AND VIOLA' MY WINDOW, SHE'S A WORKEEE!!! 10 yrs. I been livin with this! Holy CRAP! its fixed!

Here is the bad part,,,,, as I was taking this apart originally at the start of this, I did not even think that there was anything wrong, other than the handle gears being stripped out. Well, they stripped out over time cuz the a-hls who fixed the damage put it back together wrong, an I was a dumb ***** to put it back together as I saw it.......once I get my phone photos down loaded and edited I'll post them up...but, holy crap! I could not believe it has been that way that long an I DID NOT CATCH IT!


However, I am glad I finally have it working the way it should......

(and yes, you do have to be somewhat of a contortionist to get them small 1/4 x 20 nuts onto the back side of the handle assy., inside the door frame.)

well, there it is, in case anyone needs a detailed explanation of a manual window regulator R & R. (yeah I know, freakin windbag!)

cheers!

cpnwrench