So just as I was tallying the maintenance costs for the last year, the wife starts rolling driver's side window down, feels some clanking, and suddenly the crank does not move the window and the window is tilted forward, about half way down. In other words, the window went down about 3 inches, then something happened in there, the window tilted forward about 20 degrees, and the crank stopped operating.

I opened the door and pulled the window up with hands, moved the crank again and felt some clanking in there, and left it at that. Thankfully the window stayed up on the way home - 250 miles.

Before I dig in there, any ideas what happened in there? I am guessing the window jumped off the clips, the regulator went down and when she tried to bring it back up became misaligned with the window, and it somehow affected the gear connection? No idea, pure guessing.

69K miles on the car, if it makes a difference.

Thanks as always!

Because of the clanking and tilting, the nuts that hold the regulator to the door may have come off. You can see them as soon as you remove the door panel.

The window regulator itself is pretty simple and stout. It connects to the window through two pivot points on the lower channel (the part the glass is pressed onto). Those stamped metal parts where the regulator attaches are secured by a few spot welds. Those welds can fail--the forward one being the most likely--which would cause the regulator to jam up and the front of the window to droop. -- replacing the lower window channel used to be a common thing on 140's which had the same design but the metal wasn't treated and would rust away. -- Dave