Power window stuck at almost-up

After lurking here for months and admiring b-body wagons from afar I finally got one--a 92 Roadmaster. It's been great! Anyway: I've been meaning to do an introduction post, but I feel like I should probably get the door panel back on first. The driver's window was stuck down a couple of inches when I got it; the previous owner let me know he'd unplugged the power window motor rather than trying to figure it out. I took everything apart (it was easy, because the previous owner had broken every last clip) and plugged it back in, just to see what would happen, and was rewarded with this:



That's all the travel it has in either direction. From lurking here and on YouTube I've seen that a lot of the time it's the little rollers on either side that are broken, but I can't tell if that's what's going on; before I buy some new ones (or replace the whole thing) I thought I'd ask here. It's stuck about two inches from the top of the door; I tried to embed a photo but I guess my account's still too new to do it. I can pull it up by hand but it falls to exactly the same position as soon as I let go. Thanks for the years of discussion; it was really useful in making up my mind about getting one of these wagons, and I'm sure it'll be even more useful now that I have one.

Well, the top sliders are not broken. Check the lower track to see if it has something stuck in it, or if the slider is broken. The lower track is what the arm pushes against to raise the window. The lower track may even be unbolted.

It could be something stuck in the gears, or a damaged tooth on the drive gear (it moves about that far in one revolution. There is an internal worm drive in the motor unit that could have something damaged as well). It is relatively easy to swap out the regulator. The regulators are held in with 4 large aluminum pop rivets and three ball studs in sliders. Replacing the motor is a lot more difficult, and you have to remove the regulator to do it. If you have a local pick and pull junk yard, the whole regulator is cheap, and easy to replace. All front door regulators for B bodies are the same. as well as the regulator for the 93-96 Fleetwood. Rear regulators for the Roadmaster sedan and Fleetwood are different.

I always replace the pop rivets with short 1/4 inch bolts. If you are going to swap the regulator, replace the sliders with rollers while you have it apart, or you will probably be doing it again in a couple of months.

Thanks Fred. I found a Haynes manual for a couple of bucks here in town and I saw that the regulator was supposed to be held in place with four rivets. Looking at mine I saw... one bolt, in one of the four corners.

Here's a video from inside the door:



Things don't seem mounted correctly back there at all, but aside from the mounting being wrong I can't even tell how things are supposed to look, and it's sufficiently far from normal that running the window doesn't put the regulator anywhere near where the rivets would have been. Should I remove the one bolt and move it into position manually, or just take the whole thing apart and start over?

Obviously it is not installed correctly, or the bolts fell out. I would get 4, 1/4 inch by 1/2 inch bolts, and 4 Nylock nuts, then install it correctly.