Tag: window regulator

Weather Proofing

A nice weekend for a change and warm air made ideal working conditions at Mustang Maniac. The job was pre arranged for this weekend and it was all about weather proofing. Well, as good as weather proofing you can get on a fifty year old car! The first job was going to be the inside of door weather rail that holds the rubber strip in place to make it water tight. It was at this point of winding the handle of the driver’s side that we (OK Adam then) was not happy with the feel of it. The driver’s door has had a knock in the past right at the front by where the winder mechanism is located and the door was replaced due to the extensive structural damage inside. These are the pics after all the filler was removed.

before we started
line shows the damage

The window regulator was worn more than expected and Adam detected an unusual binding. In fact it was like watching a robber trying to crack an old style dial safe. He listen to the winder a few times, up and down then again. A decision was made to swap it out but it could be OK for a while. The last thing you want it to start taking the door cards off a few months after it’s all done to pull it all apart to replace the regulator. Now under a no load scenario when it was fitted the wear was not evident to me at least. But once connected to the weight of the window and the restriction of the rails it become more obvious. To me it felt OK, but to Adam it was not good enough. So I was tasked to remove the complete mechanism with the glass in place. A feat on its own! The mechanism came out with a bit of fiddling and loosening of the adjustment bolts. Taking the mechanism to Adam he looked it over and confirmed what he thought. Where the door was impacted it had placed a slight bend on the winding plate which has of centred the spindle to the winder handle. To replace it was a little easier as I could assemble the window scissor arms inside the door. This of course meant that all the adjusting of the windows a few weeks ago would have to be done again. Pictures? Nope – there would be no difference as everything looks the same still, it was all inside the door.

The second job was the original first job now, fitting the inside of the door recess trims. We looked over the stainless rails could see that the rails had been over tightened and the metal distorted around the screw holes.

These holes would have to be flattened out in order to lay flat inside the gaps. A block of metal was found that would fit inside the rails so that it would become the base of the makeshift anvil. A small piece of cloth was placed over the metal to soften the blows of the small leather faced hammer that would not show any hammer marks inside or outside. This took a fair bit of patience and the end result was pretty good.

A dry fit of the rail to the bodywork was fine as we wanted to make sure the very subtle twists to the metal were still where they should be. A layer of sticky foam was carefully laid over the back of the fitting to form a cushion against the bodywork and paint.

weatherstrip6

The rail was lightly screwed into position before we tightened it all up.

Next up was the sticky part – Impact adhesive. The rail has a slight lip each side and the weather strip is held in place. There are debates over it was stuck in place or not. I have seen factory original cars where I can safely say that they were stuck in place as well. The glue was applied to the rubber and the trim and we started from the front. You get one chance at it and we pulled it off. The fact is as I was helping hold the rubber to stop it twisting and sticking to itself I could get photos at this point. But I have found this picture of somebody fitting theirs, but you get the idea. I will get some of my pics next week.

With the strip in place it was time align the door glass all back up again. This took ages as I had to undo it all gain to get the new regulator back in.

top of door
rear quarter

The tops of the doors has a felt window scraper if you like to help take the damp of the car window and guide the glass from being scratched. There is a thicker strip and a smaller strip that clips into cut outs. In order to make the felt fit I have been allowed to let you into a trade secret in fitting them. Once these things are in they snap in place and area real nightmare to get out without damaging your paint, and you will destroy the felts. Dry fit is best to make sure the clips align with the holes. The top of the window will be right where the felts need to go. The tip is remove the bottom bump stop and wind the window down the extra inch until it’s just below the door skin.

removed lower bump stop
cut outs for the felt

Clip the strips in place making sure the chrome is the right way up. There is a about two or three millimetres difference at each end on the felts, if they are upside down they will not but up correctly to the edge of the door.

clipping in place
outside felt
both sides

Now raise the window up a little to the correct bottom position and refit the bump stop, the window will be seated correctly between the felts.

weatherstrip16

While we are on the subject of the water, we decided to fit a little more fancy stuff on the car, the windscreen wipers to be exact. The wiper motor has been tested to work fine and the wiper arm spindles stop in park. Adam told me a horror story of a guy who put new wiper arms on his Mustang and tried them out. The wipers were not in park and the wipers arms were gouged down his hood bending them up in the process. As such Adam is very cautious about this only half presses them on when he fits them. he will lift them off the glass and run the wipers a few times until they settle. Then he will position them correctly. The wiper arms only sit on a splined shaft and pressed on.

wiperlinks6

Better to be safe than sorry. The wiper arms are in stainless and just set the car off a little. They are not correctly positioned just yet though.

wiper1

wiper2

Next week it could be the trunk weather strip, or rear quarter felts, or dash pad, I will just have to wait and see.

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Glass Prep

The sun was out, I was out on my way to Mustang Maniac yesterday. I had an idea what was going to be done today but wasn’t to sure. The glass in the doors needed to be fitted and can be a real tricky to line up. It was time to open the box of bits and bolts to try and work out where some of these bits came from. I have learnt one thing with this car, although the nuts and bolts holds things in place they may not be the correct fixings. Again that turned out to be true with the window regulators. There were bolts holding it into the door that shouldn’t be there, adjusters that should be there weren’t there and it was all very confusing. The plan was to fit sound proofing to the driver’s door, and prep the glass itself. We had to work out a plan of action, we decided the painting of the window, Dynamat then the regulators.  The main door glass is mounted on a metal frame and that had gone a little rusty on the surface. I degreased it, cleaned it, sprayed some rust proof on it then sprayed it silver. While each part was drying I worked on the door Dynamat and came back to the spraying.

The insides of the doors are coated from the factory with a thick sound proofing. On the new door it would be just the skin. To stop the resonance and the road noise a sticky matting is stuck to the metal. Pretty much like the silver matting that is on the floor of my car that I covered previously, click here. The mat was cut to the length required and the angle needed to fit under the side rail.

With the sound proofing done it was back to the main glass for more spraying. It takes a quarter of the time to dry in the sun.

Next I started to fit the front quarter windows which was where I ran into the first issue. The quarter is slid down into the top of the door where the top adjuster is fitted as soon as you can see the hole on the frame. Once that is in place its a case of tilting the glass towards the rear of the car to get it into the position you need it.

location of adjuster
screwed all the way in
window in place

The issue was that the bolt at the bottom was supposed to be the second adjuster, it was unclear which side of the frame the adjuster would be fitted. To be sure Adam removed a door card from an old car in his “grave yard” to check. Adam was right, it was on the inside of the frame and pulled tight by a bolt. A little moving of the window around enabled me to fit the adjuster at the bottom in situ as it were. Two more bolts are then screwed to the outside part of the adjuster to hold it all in place as we had seen on the old untouched car. The second issue was that these two retaining bolts were missing, and they often are when removed. Adam had to get me a pack as I had nothing like it in my odds and ends fixings box.

So that was the passenger door and it was to be repeated on the driver’s side. Now I knew what I had to do, it took a quarter of the time. Next up was the window regulators, this is pretty uninteresting to look at as it’s all inside the door. There are four bolts that hold the regulator and a trailing section for the scissor action that hold the glass. the secret to this part is how you fold the metal up and slot it through the seemingly tiny opening in the door. Once it’s inside you have to open it out then bolt it into place. Sounds easy, but when you have new paint work it took me a lot longer than I thought it would.

windregulators3

Repeated on the driver’s side it was little quicker but still a slow process. All you can really see is the bolts in place so not terribly exciting for a days work!

But, I did try to take a picture inside of the door with the mechanisms all in place.

handle

The final part is a vertical guide that slide into place at the back of the door. This is a support for the glass at the back. The front is supported by the front quarter window glass frame. You have got to hand it to the designers, this was a cheap car at the time and everything was modular which just bolted in place, so simple that it all just worked. Fifty years later the mechanism still works fine with a bit of new grease. Not many new cars will be able to say that in fifty years time!

The plus side to all of this is that the glass that had been sprayed had dried nicely and should be cured fully when I come to fit it in place next week. A short post this week with not too much to look at as it was all hidden unfortunatly. But at least you can see a little bit of the door coming together now.

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