By now more than a few of us have had to replace the plastic rollers in the power window motor. That's pretty much a straight forward fix as any for a Consulier, but I was still having issues with the window on the drives side.
Ever since I got the car, the drivers window had been binding at the rear when rolling down.
When I had the door panel out to fix the rollers I had a look at it and the felt in the steel track was bunched up and binding the window. I decided to leave that for another day..
I finally got fed up with it and decided to tackle it this past weekend. I had hoped that the window track wasn't glassed into the door and to my surprise, it's actually removable.
Removal:
2 Philips screws with 1/4" nuts at the bottom of the door and some rtv at the top is all that holds it in.
After the screws are out, roll the window about half way down slowly while holding the track in place, enough so that the track can be "rolled" off the back window edge. You'll need to leave enough space under the window to get your hand in there an kinda just pull the window forward and twist / roll the track off sideways.
The back edge of the window is actually pretty small and only about 4 inches ride in the track.
The track looked pretty beat up. Spread a little toward the top ( possibly to help hold it in place ), had some marks from pliers on it like it had been tweaked at some point.
I found some fuzzy topped ribbon at the craft store that's 1.5 inches wide that I was able to glue into the track to replace the missing flocking. This should work for a bit while I look for the correct flocked channel
FYI, the track looks like generic flocked channel cut to length and an L bracket riveted to it ...and yes, I forgot to measure it...DOH!
After installing is where it got interesting...
The window wasn't c0cking sideways and stopping any more, but was still binding up enough to put a pretty good load on the motor.
Upon inspection, the track was flexing inward and twisting enough to strain the window motor.
I added a brace to hold the track in place and to keep it from twisting. The brace is a little piece of 3/4 square steel tube about 3 inches long that was notched to cup the back side of the track ( reduce twist ) and buts up against the inner part of the door ( reduce inward flex ). The support is just above where the track passes the door latch mech and is jb welded to the track.
The window rolls down easy, straight and the motor seems to be happier.
I know this sounds like a one-off problem, but thought I'd bring it up because the passenger rear track also has some flex when rolling down the window( albeit not enough to drag on the motor )....and I have no way of knowing if this is the same for a series 2 car...
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