Window motor spring rewind question

[Chris Yewdall]

Just in the process of rebuilding the driver side electric window after the shorter cable broke. Watched Hugo's video (am rebuilding with one of his regulator upgrade kits while I'm at it) however when I was dismantling the motor, the cables had wound around the plastic cable drum which meant that the spring popped out of the window mechanism while I was trying to pry the drum free.

Has anyone rewound one of the window motor springs? If so is there a specific number of turns that need to be made to pre-tension the spring or do you just keep winding it until it is just small enough to compress into the plastic spring retainer?

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Zero4]

Same thing happened to me. I finally gave up and sent them to window repair.com. 200 to fix each side. Works fine now.

 

[Chris Yewdall]

How to rewind the window regulator motor spring

OK, for the record and in the likely event that someone else does this when rebuilding their window regulator, here's how you rewind the window motor spring if it pops out. Firstly, make sure you know which way the spring is wound as it can be wound in one of two ways which are 180 degrees different (presumably to tension either the driver side and passenger side windows). There is a hook on the outer part of the spring that locates in a slot on the white plastic housing. See the picture below which are off the driver side window motor on a left hand drive car.



With the outer spring hook located in the plastic recess, start winding the spring into the housing. Take it slowly and make sure the spring is snug and held by a thumb or finger to stop it popping out while winding in as it will offer some resistance. After about 4-5 revolutions have been wound into the housing, move the spring and the housing to a vice and clamp 1/4" or so of the edge of the housing using the end/corner of the vice jaws. This will stop the spring from popping out and also leave enough room to wind the rest of the spring into the middle.

I then took a set of locking needle nose grips and attached then to the tab in the middle of the spring. Wind this gently to compress the middle of the spring and pop it back into the middle of the spring coil. Make sure that it has seated properly.

Once in place, use a flat blade screwdriver to gently press the spring hook onto the plastic retainer so it is a snug fit.

Job done and should only take about 5 minutes. :smile:

 

[Alec_fields]

Do you want to tighten the spring with winding or loosen? I was just installing his kit too and wasn't 100% on how to wind them. Their instructions say 1 and a half rotations, but which way is my question?

-Alec

 

[Chris Yewdall]

Hi Alec. I was thinking about this and my guess is that the spring needs to be under tension when the window is in the down position so it provides some upward momentum to aid the cable and motor when raising the glass. So if their instructions say 1.5 rotations, it should be rotations that compress the spring pulling more of the outer coil towards the center of the spring (there were no instructions in the package that the window upgrade kit was shipped in). Whichever direction tensions the spring would be my suggestion. There is also a little part of this in Hugo's video on YouTube where he pops the spring housing out when he starts to strip the motor and again when he reassembles the cables and tensions the spring. It is difficult to tell how many turns Hugo puts on the spring housing as his hand obscures the position of the tabs but it seems he doesn't put it under more than 3/4 rotation at around 6:50 into the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSzUMkjHv5w

 

[Chris Yewdall]

Alec, Hugo PM'd me and indicated that the spring housing needs 1.5 in the direction of winding in the longer black cable. The spring tension also needs to be applied with the window caddy that bolts onto the bottom of the window at its highest point on the regulator mechanism (as if the window were in the fully closed position). So basically I think this means:

1. pull the window caddy fully up the regulator track
2. locate the inner spring tab on the window motor shaft
3. turn the spring housing 1.5 times in the same direction that would cause the black cable to be wound into the motor and onto the spool
4. locate the spring housing on the plastic gear below using the 3 pegs and complete the re-assembly of the motor housing