First off, Hi! New to MCF! (like what I see so far!)

I have a 2004 Monte Carlo SS! And really...after that...what else does one need? ; )

j/k

Anyways...so I'm pullin through the drive through at McDonals last night...go to crack the window so I can place my order, and notice the window's not going down. Keep pushin the button, no movement (can hear a slight motor whirl).

Been pretty cold here lately, so figuring it might be frozen/stuck, I push down on the window while pressing the button.

The window slides (half falls) right down into the door. Sideways and kind of diagonal! [:@]

Placed my order, paid, and pulled over, all the while the back corner of my window sticking up out the door.

AFter a few minutes of tricky finess, I got the window back in place.

But everytime I hit the slightestbump, the window drops down just a little. After about 10 minutes of driving, the window's about half way down. Current temp's here are ~20°! Very cold to have my window constantly fallin down.

I'm guessing it's a problem with the window regulator? Am I right?

Is this easy to fix myself? (my warrenty ran out about 200 miles ago! Go figure!)

Any help would be greatly apprecited.

Gonna take the door panel off here in a bit, I can post pictures if it would help.


Note from Admin Taz: The pictures in this thread were lost when we moved to our new forum. Pictures from our old forum are no longer available. Sorry.

 

 

 

Thank you very much for the nice words. Yeah, I love this car. hehehe

okay..figured out the problem. And not only did i solve it, but figured I'd bring you guys along the journey, in the hopes that maybe this'll help anyone else who might run into the problem.

The main problem was, the window got off the tracks.

How? Well...apperantly the two bolts holding the track braces in place....just fell out. They were laying on the bottom of the inside of the door! Classic! I had service done on the car about a year ago to fix a squeek in the window. Apperantly they didn't tighten the bolts enough when putting it back together, and over time, I guess the bolts just slowly loosened until they came out.

IN any case... Here's a little DIY to help anyone else fix this problem:


(wish I knew how to actually put the pictures in the middle of my text...sorry if this is hard to follow due to them being at the bottom. Mod's please feel free to embed the pics for me and delete this statement! hahah)

Anyways...it Sucked! Big time. 20° out!

anyways...wanted to take a look, so needed to get the door opened up.

First thing, gotta take out 4 simple screwes. (circled here in the first pic).


You'll notice two of them seem hidden in the door handle. But they're angled,
so easy to get.

Once you have those four screws out, put a padded glove on, stick your fingers
behind the plastic panel right behind the screw in the upper right hand corner of the picture.

When you have your fingers behind the plastic panel, start sliding your hand downward around the plastic panel clockwise all the way around the whole panel. It'll pop in a few places (this is the plastic catches being popped out/released). When you're coming up the other side of the door, stop at the window.

Now grab the loosened panel and pull it upwards, it should release from the hanging hooks right where the panel meets the window.


now...comes what I found to be the hardest part.

It's easier than you'll think it is at the time...requires patience.

Before the panel will come off all the way, you need to detach the three cable's.

The easiest way to do this is to turn the panel upside down. This gives you a better angle to get to the clips.



I recommend removing the cable marked "1" in the picture first. You'll need to get a small flathead screwdriver and push in the tab that is located on the side closest to the panel (also coincidentally the side HARDEST to reach). Push in the tab and then slide out the wire harness.

Then try to get the "2" cable. Again, the tab is hard to reach. And this one requires a really small screwdriver. The tab is hidden inside the casing, play around until you get it.

Before trying to get the "3" harness off, I instead recommend pushing out the mini panel that it's part of. (in the picture in the post above, this is the mini-panel around the door's release handle and lock button. Dead center in the picture).

Once you push this mini panel out, you'll have a MUCH easier time releasing the wire harness. Again, look for the hidden tab, push it down with a small screwdriver, and release the wire harness.



Forgive me, as I didn't take a picture of this part, but you need to peel back the plastic to get inside. Also, you'll need to remove the styrofoam block.

The Plastic's easy enough to peel back...it's getting it to stick back when you're all done that's tricky. But use whatever you have to get it back in place. Glue gun, etc.

To remove the styrofoam block, first at about 12 o'clock on the block, there will be a black clip holding it in place. Reach behind the block and pop the clip from the metal door frame.

From here, it's really a matter of just carefully yet forcefully pullin the block out. It's kind of glued in place. If you have the top clip released...just pull and try not to break it.

here's a pic with the plastic pulled back and the styrofoam block removed:



If you noticed in the previous picture, I circled two area's.

This is where the twobolts (10mm, I belive)that hold the window's mounting braces in place can be accessed if the window is all the way up. I've attached two closer pictures for a better look.

In MY case..these two bolts were MISSING!!!! Reaching into the door frame, I was VERY lucky to find them resting at the bottom. Hopefullly you're as lucky.

In any case, with a little magical finger work (or a magnetic socket wrench), you can get this bolts back in place, INSURING that the window is back in track/held by the braces.

Screw the bolts back in, and viola! Window's fixed!!

 

one word of advice is if your pulling door panels off and it is that cold out MAKE SURE you run the heater and get them warmed up. or do it in a shop where you can get them air warmer aroudn the car so that you dont break or crack anything.

Thsi also a verry good idea for the glass also. as it tends to become more britel in cold weatehr.


to get yoru window to work.

open the door and make sure that the window is suported or you have the stuff to do it.
I would also make sure you have something there to help you lock the window in place if it is at teh top so it dont slam down and cause it to break.

then while it is open try runnign the window up or down.
once you figure out where the whine is comming from.

If you should find it is the regulator you can attempt to clean it all up and put fresh grease on it ,

and make sure that it is sliding and or moving the right way.

once you have this done and the window moves freely agian and is goign to work .
Then put your window back on track. most of the tiem the windos are glued or some other way attached to the track. make sure that it didnt come off of this also.

if it has put it back togeatehr and then test.
reinstall door parts and test agian.

Good luck

 

(btw...Mickey, GREAT advice!! Thanks for the extra input!!)


The next picture shows a better look of the window braces and bolts holding the braces in place. To get this shot, I rolled the window back down a good bit, mainly just to show you guys what the insides look like.

You can see the same two bolts you just screwed in above, as well as the window resting on the braces.



[IMG]local://upfiles/3650/5CF2968C1C144E81B6F7E86DBCCFFAE2.jpg[/IMG]

 

If all goes well, you should simply just (reversing these instructions) put everything back together and have a working window!

For me, the trickiest part of putting everything back was getting the top hooks on the door panel to ALL catch on the clips at the top of the door (where it meets the window).

Many many attemps resulted in MOST of them catching...but always one not quite on.

Play with this until you get them ALL to catch (or water might get down into your door's innards). Once you have them all hooked, then just smack the panel back into place. Pushing all the plastic catches back into their holes.

Put back your 4 screwes, and breath a sigh of relief. I know *I* just saved me a couple hundred dollars in service! hahaha

hope this helps someone a little.

My car's happy again!!

Just glad to have my window back in working order!!!

[IMG]local://upfiles/3650/940082BD04C245219D19F8A8447FAE91.jpg[/IMG]

 

Nope.

Just kind of starting to get into the mod thing.

Any suggestions with which mod's to start? tweaks? etc?

Only after factory change I've was installing a GOOD RF Modulator for my mp3 player. (the kind that actually goes in-line with the radio's antennae/amp.

Other than that...not much else.

Always looking to learn though.

 

Im having this same problem here in minnesota...its very cold too and it happened to me this last week when it was -20 below zero. Ill just have to wait until spring to fix it. I figured something had come undone because I can still here the motor and the window went back up.