92 Accord Window Regulator Fix
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Joined: Nov 2003
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92 Accord Window Regulator Fix
Say, this place has potential! Just bumped into it after too many pic/chat sites. Hello everybody!
Anyway, thought I'd show yesterday's fix for a 92 Accord's window regulator I'm just slightly happy about. The window tracking was bad since the car was purchased (my neighbor's actually). It would stick halfway and jump around. Using the switch's auto-lowering feature played heck with it and meant lifting the window by hand. I'd heard these went out quite often.
I took out the regulator and found 4 missing teeth. Bordering teeth were razor thin. An arm bushing was worn just enough for it to wobble over and catch another which probably led to the tooth wear.
Nobody had one in stock locally so it meant a day and $100. Found aftermarket units on ebay for $60 shipped but that would mean next week. It's supposed to rain the next several days. Baad.
Stared at it a bit and thought "farm fix". I cleaned it up, bent the arm just enough to clear, MIG'd up new teeth (hold your breath, that's galvanized steel) and die-ground them into something workable. Emery cloth to take off edges and not chew up motor teeth. Nothing beautiful, but greased and reassembled now it's very smooth and quiet. Once again we're drive-through compatible!
Before/after:
Total cost (vs buying new regulator): 15 minutes and a few inches of .023 wire. It may come apart completely in 6mo but it saved me the time of opening up the door a 2nd time.
Dave
Anyway, thought I'd show yesterday's fix for a 92 Accord's window regulator I'm just slightly happy about. The window tracking was bad since the car was purchased (my neighbor's actually). It would stick halfway and jump around. Using the switch's auto-lowering feature played heck with it and meant lifting the window by hand. I'd heard these went out quite often.
I took out the regulator and found 4 missing teeth. Bordering teeth were razor thin. An arm bushing was worn just enough for it to wobble over and catch another which probably led to the tooth wear.
Nobody had one in stock locally so it meant a day and $100. Found aftermarket units on ebay for $60 shipped but that would mean next week. It's supposed to rain the next several days. Baad.
Stared at it a bit and thought "farm fix". I cleaned it up, bent the arm just enough to clear, MIG'd up new teeth (hold your breath, that's galvanized steel) and die-ground them into something workable. Emery cloth to take off edges and not chew up motor teeth. Nothing beautiful, but greased and reassembled now it's very smooth and quiet. Once again we're drive-through compatible!
Before/after:
Total cost (vs buying new regulator): 15 minutes and a few inches of .023 wire. It may come apart completely in 6mo but it saved me the time of opening up the door a 2nd time.
Dave
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Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 5
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Re: (KTeller8)
Sorry, here's a pic of a complete regulator assembly:
Note the quarter-circle gear arm where teeth were missing.
(This isn't my pic. The upper horizontal arm isn't a match for our OEM. OEM has/had 4 bolts in that horizontal arm in addition to the two at the motor bracket. Possibly a revision or sedan/coupe thing.)
On ours, looking at above picture, the lower right leg of the X was contacting a piece behind the coiled spring. That's what I had to "tweak" outward slightly.
Note the quarter-circle gear arm where teeth were missing.
(This isn't my pic. The upper horizontal arm isn't a match for our OEM. OEM has/had 4 bolts in that horizontal arm in addition to the two at the motor bracket. Possibly a revision or sedan/coupe thing.)
On ours, looking at above picture, the lower right leg of the X was contacting a piece behind the coiled spring. That's what I had to "tweak" outward slightly.
Thread Starter
Joined: Nov 2003
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Re: teeth
Mike says I need to explain the teeth.
I stack-welded them with a MIG welder.
Turn the gear arm such that what's left of the teeth are pointing at you. Using low power and small wire, stack up short bursts of weld until you have blobs approximately where teeth should be. Using a die-grinder, dremel, file, etc, shape the new metal into teeth. I thinned the blobs down to the thickness of the arm, then shaped the rising/falling ramps, then cut the tips off, in that order.
I didn't use a pattern and it's far from perfect but the motor seems content. Key is smoothing off the harsh edges (with emery cloth in my case) so the motor's gear doesn't get chewed up.
I stack-welded them with a MIG welder.
Turn the gear arm such that what's left of the teeth are pointing at you. Using low power and small wire, stack up short bursts of weld until you have blobs approximately where teeth should be. Using a die-grinder, dremel, file, etc, shape the new metal into teeth. I thinned the blobs down to the thickness of the arm, then shaped the rising/falling ramps, then cut the tips off, in that order.
I didn't use a pattern and it's far from perfect but the motor seems content. Key is smoothing off the harsh edges (with emery cloth in my case) so the motor's gear doesn't get chewed up.
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