S3 electric window überholung

[phil1800]

I thought I share some of my experiences on overhauling ( the German word above ) the windows mechanism and motors on my 67 S3 DHC. Since I bought it in 2017 from Canada (er, unseen), the windows were super slow, the lh side didn‘t close without intervention. NOS Lotus window cables came with the car, so after 6 years I finally tackled the job. I knew that the plastic rollers were shot, but I didn‘t what the root cause was. Hence I also ordered the window motor conversion kit from Michael Allison here on the forum. The rollers, Alex Black cable clamps and window felts were sourced from Sue Miller.

[gjz30075]

The motor conversion kit is a great upgrade. I've done three cars with this kit.

[smo17003]

The motor conversion kit is a great upgrade. I've done three cars with this kit.

I've recommended Michael's window motor kit before; happy to do so again.

[Billelan]

Can you post a link to Michael’s window motor conversion. I’ve just started work on my S4 windows and would be interested in having a quicker system. Thanks in advance.

[phil1800]

Michael is on this forum, look for: ae mike
The job was pretty straightforward, after removing the cables, rollers and window felts from the door frames, I cleaned everything and removed rust from the lower frame and the felt clips. While at it, I found a hairline crack on the window support. My cheap‘n dirty approach was to epoxy a small L section to the support lip and to drill a ‚relief‘ hole on the end of the crack.
The NOS cables were very stiff, so winding them around the pulley and reassemble the pulley support was not working, even with my daughter’s support. Clamping the pulley with cable in the vise (gingerly!!) for a couple of days did the trick for me. Assembly was still tricky and four hands are absolutely needed, even using Alex Black‘s genius clamps. As said before, the window conversion kit is very well made. If you actually read the instruction before assembly (unlike myself), you won’t try to put the connector on the motor without the terminals assembled and you won‘t spend some entertaining hours trying to remove it again without braking anything.

Philipp

[gjz30075]

To Billelan, as an fyi, there's no need to disassemble the window mechanism with this kit, unless the cables,
rollers, etc are in such a shape to warrant it. It's simply swapping motors.
Just pm ae_mike.