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The Window
One of the first things I noticed when I
brought the car home was the lack of any interior parts on the
passengers side rear door. When I looked a bit closer, I noticed a
bit of wood wedged between the door frame, and the window. A bit
more investigation revealed that the window motor was laying loose in
the bottom inside of the door, and that bit of wood was the only thing
holding the window up.
It didn't take long for that block of wood to slip
(several times) allowing the window to open. This usually happened
when it was raining, or snowing out. Lifting the window back into
place, and holding it there while trying to get the block of wood wedged
in enough to keep the window closed was a colossally difficult task, and
after repeating it several times, I decided some packing tape might be a
better way to hold the window up.
In early April, my mother and I investigated.
After completely tearing the power window mechanism apart, and doing
some testing, I discovered that there were two problems. First
off, the window switch for the passengers side rear door was no good.
Secondly, the window regulator was broken in many different places /
ways, and was well beyond repair, or at least beyond what I could
repair.
On Friday, April 6th I came across a full set of power
window switches on Ebay. At less than $30 for the whole set,
including shipping and handling, I bought them up. On Saturday,
April 7th, Krystal and I went to Autozone, and ordered a new regulator.
The new regulator does not include the motor, so I
needed to separate the old motor from the old regulator. They were
attached with three phillips head machine screws. Of course, one
of the three screws was so tight that the screwdriver stirpped the head.
I used a cutting wheel on my dremel tool to slot the head, and tried to
turn it with a flat head screwdriver, and a pair of vice grips.
This managed to bend the tip of my screwdriver, and strip the head of
the screw again. For my final attempt at removing the screw, I
ground two flat spots on opposite sides of the head, and then clamped
the vice grips on it, and the screw finally came loose. |