How to fix Power Windows

Are your power windows slow? Is the motor running, but there's just nothing happening? Did you think that power windows were just too much of a pain to fix? Well, think that no more. There's no sense in paying a shop $150+ to fix each window...Do it yourself!

Here's how:

I just got my new Bronco, and I'm thrilled. But, it does have some issues. Most notably, the drivers window was slow and seemed to hang up in the middle, and the passenger side window just wouldn't work at all. You could hear the motor run, but no go. So I decided to dig in and fix them. I went to NAPA and bought a power window motor repair kit and went to work.

First step, remove the door panel. This is the easy part, but I made a mistake and it wound up costing me an extra $12.00. You should remove the inside door handle before you remove the panel. I left it on and worked the panel around it, and wound up breaking it. There is a single bolt just inside the brushes that is easy to remove and reinstall. This saves a ton of work later. Next, remove the switch panel from the door panel by removeing the 3 Phillips screws. Pull the switch assembly out and set the panel aside.

Now comes the hard part, removing the window motor. You need to remove the entire motor/regulator assembly. It is riveted in, so you will need to drill the rivets out. I ground the rivets flat, and then drilled them out. Then you need to remove the support strut for the arm rest. Then you can slide the regulator out of the slide channel on the window and work the regulator out of the door. Once free, you can remove the motor by removing the 3 8mm bolts that hold it to the regulator assembly. This is a good time to drop some oil on the rotating axis for the regulator. On the passenger side, the regulator was frozen. Once you have the motor seperated from the regulator assembly, you are ready to replace the drive gear assembly.

Remove the single phillips screw from the retaining plate and pull the plate from the motor. The gear assembly then pulls right off. In mine, the internal gears had disintegrated. I put the new gearset in the motor and re-lubed it with the supplied grease packet, and then re-assembled the entire motor/regulator assembly.

I worked the assembly back into the door and then thought, ok, now what? I had drilled the rivets out, and now needed to re-attach the assembly to the door. I wanted to use rivets again, but my rivet gun did not work with 1/4" rivets. So, I went to my local hardware store and bought a bunch of 1/4 x 1/2" bolts and nuts and bolted it back in. No problems. I first placed one bolt in loosely, and then reconnected the motor and worked it around to align the other bolts with the bolt holes in the doors. Overall this job took about 2 and a half hours, and the passenger window works like new.

Now on to the driver's side. In this case, the window worked, but it was slow, and seemed to be binding up about the middle of the window. I knew this would probably require replacing the entire motor, so I dug in. Getting the regulator out went much faster on this side after learning all my lessons on the passenger side. When I opened up the motor, it was full of water (!). No wonder it was dying. I went to Autozone and got a new motor for $59.99 (lifetime warranty) and got to work.

First, I had to deal with the binding issue. It turns out that the window channels were misaligned, so I realigned the channels and then re-installed the regulator/motor assembly as I did on the passenger side. The new motor is significantly faster now, and the window now operates much better. There is still some misalignment in the channels, so it's not as smooth as the passenger side, but it is very satisfactory.

Put it all back together and then you're all set!

And that is how you fix your power windows!