'92 OCC Power Window Motor Fun

So I spent the entire weekend on the new Custom Cruiser. I'd planned to have the windows tinted Saturday morning, but that plan was put off a week once I determined that the driver's side rear door was not just sticking, but in fact had a bad motor. It got stuck fully down Friday night and got to spend the night in the garage.



SO Saturday morning I woke up and backed the car out enough to open the doors, while still being in the shade from the roof:


I'd replaced the plastic rail sliders on my Roady wagon but never had to do a motor before....so it was a learning experience. Autozone sells new lifetime-warranty Dorman-brand motors for $36....made proudly in Korea.. I picked one up and set to work.

I will say the door panels on the TBI-Olds-Chevy are made MUCH better than the ones on the 94-96 Roady. Most of the plastic Christmas-Tree clips are attached to metal mounts on the panels, not the brittle plastic like the ones on the Roady, and nothing cracked or broke taking it apart...a nice change.



Once getting into the door...it took a while to decide the best way to get the motor out...there's not a lot of room.


You flat can not take the motor out without taking the regulator/lift off as well...either that or your much more talented than I am. The assembly is held to the door with rivets, and I used my whizz-wheel to smooth the rivet-heads and then drilled them out. Not much fun. One of the lift rails unbots as well...and one of those bolts is directly behind the arm rest mount. After glaring at it for a while I decided the only really good way to get at it was to remove the arm rest mount, which is also riveted on...of course. More cutting and drilling... On the upside once the arm rest mount is removed, there is a good hole to get the motor and regulator out.


You have to remove the regulator from the window itself, and that means prying the balls out of the plastic sliders. Well, I of course broke both sliders prying them apart, so back to the parts store. Here's some pics with part numbers if you need them. I was not going to mess with rivets when putting the door back together. The new motor came with bolts to mount it up, but I had to get bolts to re-attach the arm rest mount, and I also bought a big package of new Christmas Tree clips. I did not want to re-use the old ones and risk the door panel rattling. There are a lot of different part numbers for these clips, but the ones I bought are the EXACT match for the factory plastic clips and worked perfect.






Once the regulator was out, I discovered the motor is riveted to it too. More drilling..yippee! Here you can see the original motor (metal) and the new Korean motor (plastic).


Now comes the fun part....I really do not feel I own a car unless I've bled working on it. Like a dumbass I forgot that the regulator was under tension from the spring. I drilled out the motor bolts and pulled the motor off....and WHAMMM!!! The regulator sprung around and sliced my knuckle open, flew across the garage, and the spring went under the GTO. Nice. I stood there with my mouth open and watched my finger and hand cover with blood...and of course realized exactly what I'd done... IF YOU DO THIS JOB, LOCK THE REGULATOR BEFORE REMOVING THE MOTOR!!!!

After cleaning my hand and Neosporin application, I layed on the floor and found the spring, put the regulator in my vice, and got the spring back on and the motor bolted on. Happily.

I re-installed the assembly in the door, bolted it together, and the hardest part of putting it back together was getting leverage to squeeze the regulator arms onto the new plastic sliders. There is NO ROOM in that door, but I finally used vice-grips and got it together, and then bolted it all back up.

Happily the window works like new again.

-Mike

Damn,that was a long monotonous story!Fell asleep twice trying to read the whole thing.Hope
you got it done Mike and goodnight!

This scenerio has been replayed a number of times on here and on ISSF. Replacing the motor on a regulator is not a fun thing. The spring is pretty obvious, and the FSM (for those who do not already know how to repair them) warns you about the dangers.

You can get the reglator out without removing the arm rest support. You just have to wiggle it around the correct way. The rears will come out with out removing the arm rest support as well.

I usually go to the junk yard and grab one from a donor, and just install the regulator and motor all in one shot. It is a lot easier, cheaper, and faster. I bolt mine in. That way, the next time I have to do it, it will be easier. I tend to loose less blood as well.

81X11 wrote:

Now comes the fun part....I really do not feel I own a car unless I've bled working on it.

^^^^Pictures or it didn't happen

I know what you mean about the bleeding part, seems like every time I work on cars something slices skin off my knuckles. Glad you got that motor replaced.

scoffman wrote:

81X11 wrote:

Now comes the fun part....I really do not feel I own a car unless I've bled working on it.

^^^^Pictures or it didn't happen

I know what you mean about the bleeding part, seems like every time I work on cars something slices skin off my knuckles. Glad you got that motor replaced.

I didn't want to gross anyone out with a bloody finger pic.....you're welcome.

I even had a car reach out and touch me at the junk yard. I was walking past, and felt something touch me on my arm...later discovered that I was bleeding profusedly.

Fred Kiehl wrote:

I even had a car reach out and touch me at the junk yard. I was walking past, and felt something touch me on my arm...later discovered that I was bleeding profusedly.

The joys of old cars and salvage-yarding!

81X11 wrote:

Fred Kiehl wrote:

I even had a car reach out and touch me at the junk yard. I was walking past, and felt something touch me on my arm...later discovered that I was bleeding profusedly.

The joys of old cars and salvage-yarding!

It's even more fun still when you don't realize that you've been bleeding until quite a while later and end up wondering just how it happened...

Mike,

do not use those cheapy panel clips. By GM or go to Fastenal. They carry a better product. You will end up with cracked door panels if they break.

BigBlackBeaSSt wrote:

Mike,

do not use those cheapy panel clips. By GM or go to Fastenal. They carry a better product. You will end up with cracked door panels if they break.

Too late. I will say that these are TIGHT and looked just like what I took off the car. They had a bunch of different styles on the rack, and I brought one of the old ones with me to match up.

I used the entire box, which basically took care of all four door panels....and hopefully I won't have to remove the door panels again for a good long time! Fingers are crossed!

-Mike

The Dorman clips are nicer now than they used to be. You'll be fine.

Keep an eye on them!

SO moved this from my "Cursed Cruiser" thread. https://gmlongroof.4umer.com/t7190-cursed-cruiser?highlight=cursed+cruiser . Here is the latest novel and pics.

As mentioned in that thread, I took the car for state inspection (it passed smog, yippee), but when I powered down the driver's side door window to hand over my insurance card, the motor burned up and the window was stuck down.

If you read the thread above, when I bought the car the driver's rear door window needed a new motor....so I'm getting good at replacing these.... That door still had the original motor in it when I took it out. Have no idea why this car is so hard on power windows, other than the fact that I'm sure, with such low miles, that it sat a lot until I bought it.

ANYWAY, I tried replacing the driver's door power window switch first, hoping that would fix the issue. I'd noticed that the window switch would sometimes stick in auto-down mode...it would not always click back off on it's own when the window was fully down. Thought that might be the issue. BUT in installing a used Roady salvage yard switch, there was no change, window still stuck down.

I parked the Cruiser in the garage, window stuck down, all last week, and drove my Cutlass to work.

Well yesterday afternoon I caught the weather forecast, and they are calling for rain for Tues-Wed this week. I am not leaving my t-top Cutlass outside in the rain, so I sucked it up and went to Autozone for another new window motor.

On getting to Autozone, they did not have the driver's front motor in stock....not at that store, or anywhere in town. The Autozone motor would be a new Dorman brand, $41 for the front (was only $36 for the rear..weird).

I called Advance and O'Reilly, (Napa is closed Sunday evening) and neither had the new Dorman motor. Advance was nuts, wanted $69 for a new motor, and none in stock either. O'Reilly had both new for $59 and rebuilt for $46. I know one of the managers at O'Reilly, and told him I could get a NEW motor from Autozone for $41. He pulled it up online, and he said he'd match the price for a new one, but it would be a Cardone-brand motor, and he didn't have it in stock, but an O'Reilly down in Austin had it.

SO after a call to the O'Reilly down in Austin I headed into the city and 25-mins later had a new motor for $41 plus tax, and also got a new set of window rollers, and a set of bolts and nuts for the arm rest mount. Got home at dusk and tore into the car.

Now just a stupid observation...I have a nice big oversized 2-car garage and a nice 2-car carport, both lighted, and I ended up doing this job in my driveway with a droplight. The GTO basket-case is sitting on two flat tires, so I can't roll it out of the garage, and with it in the garage, I can't fully open the door on the wagon without risking hitting it on the GTO. Ha! And to use the carport I'd have to hook up and pull out my little lake boat...and my Dad has the Ram with the hitch...the wagon does not have a hitch on it yet. Doh!!!

SO with a drop-light in hand I tore the door panel off by droplight in the dark driveway.


This job was a bit more of a pain than the rear door because the window was stuck fully down, and I could not easily get to the window rollers to pop them loose. Had to remove the plastic dust-sheeting and the door speaker. Plus it was hard to see inside the door...needed a 3rd arm to hold the light!

I finally got it all out. Drilled out the rivets, got the actuator arms off the track, and did end up removing the arm rest mount for more access.....which meant more rivet drilling.. Wheee!


On getting the motor and actuator out, I discovered the motor was a Napa rebuild unit.


Man that Napa motor smelled TERRIBLE too! I did not see any burned areas on the outside of the motor, but it stunk like burned brake pads. Whoo! Smelled BAD. I put the actuator in my bench vice before removing the motor....I learned my bloody lesson when I did the rear door motor. Had no urge to loose more skin to an actuator spring!!


I had a fleeting moment when I considered stopping and going to Napa the next day to see if the motor was under warranty, but I didn't want to leave the car torn apart. I did save the dead Napa motor and may go to Napa anyway...have a spare in case this happens again, if they will warranty it. One sniff and they'll know it's fried.

I installed the new Cardone motor on the actuator...still in the vice, and then bolted it all back in the door. I also removed the original-style sliders and installed new round rollers. MAKE SURE, for you who have not done this yet, to have some small clamps handy to pop the arms into the new rollers!


I did pull out the shop-vac and sucked all the metal shavings and drilled rivets out of the door bottom. I found a LOT of old rivet-parts down there in the door. Whoever did the motor job the first time did not bother to suck the original rivets out I guess. Glad there were no rattles!

I greased all the rails and pivot points, and bolted the speaker back on, followed by the plastic dust cover, and then bolted on the arm rest mount. The metal arm rest mount is added on top of the plastic. If you are riveting it on, this is simple. If you are bolting it back on, it's a pain. You have to reach under the plastic and inside the door to hold the nut as you hold the bolt and mount on the outside. Makes a really good case for rivets, but if this ever happens again I do not want to drill out rivets again...so went with bolts and nuts here.

I put the door panel back on. Now I really do not think there is anything wrong with the original window switch assembly...it looks brand new, is clean, and seems perfect. BUT just in case, I cleaned up the salvage yard switch assembly really well, made sure the chrome was spotless, and I also removed the plastic auto-down "arm" from the used switch. I hated that feature...the way they did it on these sucks compared to the LT1 Roady-style switches. Installed the modified new-used switch and checked that all the windows worked perfectly now, and then buttoned everything up.

SO here's a DONE pic from 11:45pm last night. All back together and tight. Such fun!



Hopefully the passenger-side windows will keep working. Knock wood!

-Mike

81X11 wrote:

ANYWAY, I tried replacing the driver's door power window switch first, hoping that would fix the issue. I'd noticed that the window switch would sometimes stick in auto-down mode...it would not always click back off on it's own when the window was fully down.

Yep, my switch does the same thing, but it always clicks up on it's own about 3 seconds after the window is down.

I feel your pain.......I replaced my drivers door motor as well......JOY!!