Window u/s. Removing electric window motor.

[M.J.S]

My passenger window, rarely used, has always run very, very slowly and recently stopped opening at all.

With an hour to spare today I thought I might remove the motor and check it out. Press the switch up and you can hear something happening within the motor, press down and nothing.

The workshop manual says to remove the motor open the window a third to level the arm. If it was working I wouldn't be removing it! Typical Lotus logic, don't we love it.

With the window fully up I can't reach the motor, and before I start taking apart the wrong things and making a mountain out of a molehill I thought I would consult the +2 boffins.

I'm sure somebody must have had this problem. All suggestions as ever welcomed.

Cheers.

[john.p.clegg]

First thing to try is to feed 12v direct to the motor (or input wires) just to prove it isn't the excellent Lotus wiring that is at fault....one wire to earth is up,the other wire to earth is down...

John

[alaric]

Hi. As you probably know the window motor operates a lever arm which lifts the window, the window is bolted into a channel, which the end of the motor lever slides along - so the channel moves up and down while the end of the lever travels through an arc. I found that the little bush that sits in the groove / slot on the side of this channel jammed. It may be worth spraying it with wd40 then wiggling it to free it up. If you undo the motor mount bolts everything should fall to the bottom of the door, but you'll have the end of the lever still engaged in the groove in the side of the channel. The idea is that once you've taken the motor bolts out you slide the end of the lever along until it pops out of the slot. Then the window will move up and down in the chrome frame, and you can get it way up out of the way and manoeuvre the motor out.

With it jammed in the fully upright position as you say it may be tricky to get it to disengage, and very tricky to remove it from the door. One of my doors had been hacked at - a very messy cut - which was presumably in desperation to allow the motor to be taken out. I think, looking at the video that I made when I took my doors apart, that the bolts that hold the motor onto the lever are accessable once you've removed the bolts that hold the lever and motor assembly to the door, and the little bar that actually spans the hole from the back of the lever. There are three bolts on the motor assembly itself, so, you can release the motor from the lever; the motor has a worm gear that meshes with a cog, which gives a huge mechanical advantage. But, beware, as you probably know and I'm not trying to teach you to suck eggs, that there's a very strong coil spring in the lever assembly. As soon as you release the motor bolts the lever will whip round, so keep your fingers out of the way. You can pop the coil spring off easily enough to release the tension and once done you should be able to take the whole lot out.

I hope that makes sense.

In the ideal world they are not seized and the book is correct, you set the lever horizontal and if lifts out. But if siezed you have to separate the lever and motor.

I have my motor and levers in the loft if you want pics etc to help. I'm a bit embarrased about the vid but if you're really stuck I'll try and edit it down to something useful.

I hope that's helpful - certainly helped me to revise how it all works as I'll be putting mine back together sometime soon.

[davidj]

Hi,

I found the motor mechanism very difficult to get out. Through trial and error I found the easiest method is to first remove the 1" x 7" ish plate and put a bolt through one of the holes to clamp the arm, spring and mounting plate together to stop it springing apart. The motor can then be unbolted and both parts removed from the door. Reassemble the same way, but remember to remove the bolt before testing. The mechanism does not work very well if not. Yes, I did do this!


David

[M.J.S]

Don't you just love these things.

Taking all the advice I had another go, and what a pig it is. Wriggling, banging and cursing, I thought sod it, it will wait for another day when I have more time, so I put the bolts back in and the door card back on.

Lo and behold, the window has just started working again!

In celebration I went for a blast through the local countryside with webasto and both windows open, and the nearside front tyre suddenly deflated, fortunately at low speed.

Oh happy days. I now have a wrecked 300 mile old tyre and scratched arms but at least both windows open.!!!

[alaric]

Yup, I forgot to mention all the cursing that's required. They don't mention that in the manual.

Hope you get it sorted.

Sean.

[kstrutt11]

Iv'e always found spraying the felt channels with silicone spray makes the windows move much easier, in my experince the motors are pretty robust, faults are usually in the wiring or switches.

kevin