Window winder motor overhaul

[englishmaninwales]

Please be gentle with me, my own stupidity!
Ok, mea culpa. I dropped it whilst cleaning up the outside, and would barely work after It was working before removal.
See photograph of the post mortem, my first time inside one of these!
The main problems are:
One permanent magnet fractured into two pieces, one of the fragments is loose.
Broken plastic pillar contacts - looks old (I think this is the wiper parking contacts, disabled in this application with a cut black wire?)
Near solid gearbox grease.
Filthy, but apparently un-worn commutator.
50% worn brushes.
Bearings seem ok with minimal wear.
Gears seem in good condition.


A few questions please.
My research tells me this is a Ford Escort Mk1 wiper motor?
I was thinking of glueing the broken magnet fragment back in place. Best glue for long life - epoxy or suggestions?
What is the best gearbox grease?
I can ignore the broken pillar contacts?
Best way to clean up the commutator?
A quick look on eBay, I didn’t identify new brushes - anyone know of a supplier for these?

Apologies for so many questions.
Malcolm.

[69S4]

I've epoxied them back in place in the dim and distant past (on the basis of having nothing to lose) and the motor is still working.

[miked]

Malcolm,
They were from the Anglia and Mk1 Cortina. I have heard the Escort as a source but not sure about that.
I would have a go with expoxy glue for the magnet.
The wiper contact is of no consequence and only used for park duty. Not used in the Elan application. I always remove the extra wires when overhauling an ex wiper motor.
There are loads of generic brushes on Ebay. Measure and have a look. I recently did a heater fan motor and found 1/4 × 1/4 with side pig tail. The brushes were too long. Carefully cut and bedded with fine file and wet and dry.
I have none in bits, measure and let us know. If 1/4 × 1/4, i will look back to find.
The brushes are not that long. You can see that by the pigtail slot. Just make sure by putting the arrangement together and over the free comm to see how much gap there is from the pigtail to the end of the pigtail slot.
I would clean the comm first with brake cleaer and a little brush. Pick the solid carbon from the comm segments slots carefully with a fine blade. Then wash out again.
Re: comm surface, depends how good or bad it is. Easy to rag/mess up the copper. Most of the time I just clean with above. If marked a little, use wd40 and fine wet and dry paper. If you cut on a lathe it is quite hard to obtain a nice surface. Only done it when badly grooved.
Cheers Mike

[vxah]

I have a spare motor that I could open up and take a magnet out of if needed?
I think I got it because the casing was damaged on one of mine, would need to do a little bit of checking first as none are back on the car yet so I wouldn’t want to cannibalise the wrong one!

[englishmaninwales]

Thanks for the rapid replies

Mike - yes the bushes are 1/4 * 1/4” Looking at them fitted to the commutator I can now see I was a bit pessimistic on the wear, there is about 2/3 of the pigtail slot remaining, so I think they can just can be refitted.
Thanks for the advice on cleaning the commutator. Hopefully, when cleaned it’s not scored.
Edited to add: it was from BB’s manual that I got the Escort Mk1 source, but of course that wasn’t around in 1966.

VXAH - thank you for your offer, if you are able to cannibalise a complete magnet out of your spare casing I would be grateful, I’ll remove the broken half in my casing and epoxy in your complete magnet. I have sent you a PM about this.

Malcolm

[miked]

These are the brushes I bought Malcolm.

CARBON BRUSHES CASALS 13010 drills 2T13 2T16 2T162 2T192 2T232 PC352 TP352 S26

If you Google the line it comes up wth various companies selling them. I imagine there are different grades of hardness if looked into. They are quite soft but being what they are with their inherent slipiness i would imagine they last a long time. If you do buy any and cut be careful as they are very easy to cut and dress.
Saying that I used to fit and dress very large brushes for colliery winder motors (and other DC motors) and they too were very soft so i am not up on this carbon hardness business save that the brushes are meant to be the consumabls bit and not the comm'.

[englishmaninwales]

Thanks Mike, that’s very helpful.
Malcolm

[pcarew]

Hello Malcolm,
I have a need to re-grease the gears in one of my window motors.
What grease did you end up using on your motor gears?

Looking at the 'Workshop' manual, it just says to use "HMP Grease", which I assume stands for "High Melting Point".

I'm hoping I can flush the old grease out and repack with new grease, without having to completely disassemble the gears.

Paul.

[pcarew]

Well, i ended up taking the entire motor apart to
clean and check everything.

What started out as a stuck window has turned into a creeping restoration.

New cable
New silent channel
New flock glass weather strips
New grease in gearbox

I ended up choosing this grease

[Rob1n]

Once you have carefully cleaned out the grooves on the comm the best way of cleaning the comm is with a fibreglass brush which causes no damage which you can get with wet and dry.

[englishmaninwales]

Paul,
I used standard HT wheel bearing grease which I’m sure will be fine for the long term.
Malcolm

[pcarew]

Ok, having re-assembled everything, I have discovered a new issue.
Now that I have a new 'Silent channel' in the window frame, it adds enough drag to cause an issue with the lift motor. The motor squeals like a banshee when raising the window.

I think I have narrowed this down to the worm gear spindle moving axially when raising the window.
I have taken a video of this happening:
https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZckA3VZF6XMu9SlrjVlTojIkuCRH73GRhDy

The Lotus workshop manual describes a "Steady Screw" mod. and show an image of the lift motor with with this modification:

Lift-Motor Picture from Workshop manual

As you can see from this photo of mine, there is no such screw and instead there is a spring:

S3SE Lift Motor gearbox

The spring doesn't seem strong enough to stop the axial motion.
This wasn't an issue before presumably because the old silent channel was so worn away, that there was no resistance.

- Have others seen this issue?
- Have you either added (which means drilling and tapping) a steady screw or do you already have one?

Trying to decide if I should attempt this mod. My fear is without a jig, getting the drill hole square, is going to be difficult

Thanks

[pcarew]

My solution was to add a Aluminium shim fashioned from a 1.25mm piece.
This may end up putting too much of an end load on the worm gear spindle, we'll see.
Window goes up and down without any squealing now.

At least no drilling+tapping...for now

Lift Motor with worm gear shim

[miked]

Paul,
I have never had a problem with the little leaf spring. I have however had problems with the silent channel. I fitted some from a usual suspect. The friction was too much to even test wind the glass. I did not even bother with the motor for fear of heavy current. I obtained some channel from Sue Miller were i normally got it from. It was correct. Side by side it was hard to tell the difference without a ruler. I took samples into the usual suspect to show them.
I would therefore suggest you look at this. Even if from Sue, maybe a bad batch.
It does not take much to trap the glass. Also have seen frames pinched were some one has been at it with mole grips. Also bent frames. I tuck the edges under the profile.
I would say you are stressing the motors. If you can't comfortably wind the glass up and down by hand with a spanner in the hub, it is not right. I use a combination spanner with a screwdriver to rest. Open end in hub.
Mike

[pcarew]

Hello Mike,
Thanks for the reply and your thoughts.
Indeed, when I first put the new silent channel in, the window was near impossible to move by hand (without the motor attached)

After several applications of silicon lube, the situation improved, but it was still not right. I then took a knife to one side of the silent channel and cut out the inside leaf of the channel. The window was/is now freely movable by hand, but the motor still complained when raising the window.

After adding the shim, the motor doesn't squeal anymore, but I may still be limiting it's life somewhat.
The only next step is to fully cut out one side of the silent channel. I'm loath to do that though as it completely negates the point of having the silent channel there.

I've just re-installed the window back into the door and will keep an eye on it. It maybe that with some time/use, the rubber silent channel will soften some and ease the situation.

Paul