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As I've mentioned before on this forum, I find myself far from kith and kin. Bouncing around the wasteland in a 19-year-old 240 comes with its own set of challenges. My car is well-maintained enough that I am not not concerned about a catastrophic failure, but some of the minor problems can be a real pain-in-the-ass.
Case in point: my driver's window lift stopped working, reminding me of why I never saw power windows as a selling point. I was able to assist the window closed one last time so the car was usable, but I would have to pay the price in inconvenience.
Having a friendly driveway available, I forged ahead with a repair. The good of it was that I could get a reman window lift, the bad was that I could not abide the long wait for delivery. Since the door was already apart, I thought I could prop the window closed, then take delivery of the new window lift at my next destination. That would have left me to do the install in a motel parking lot - not the ideal situation, but doable.
At some point, with the window lift motor/gearbox hanging from the harness, I decided to take a closer look, so I separated the motor from the gear housing. The motor rotor was free and the magnets were in place, but the output shaft was frozen solid in the gear housing.
I decide to test the prowess of PB Blaster - I popped the cover (which are now stacked in place) on the gearbox and flooded the recess with the PB Blaster. Holding the gear housing flat with the exposed side facing up created a bit of a reservoir around the output shaft. The shaft is flatted on its inboard end which provided a convenient way to swing the shaft back and forth until it freed. Once the shaft was able to be rotate full revolutions, I connected the motor and while holding the lift assembly outside the door void, I kept spraying the Blaster and exercised the lift under power. Eventually it was spinning like a top.
I cleaned up the mess the PB Blaster had created then dumped in some motor oil allowing it to soak for a while. I then drained the oil from the housing and lubed up the works with white lithium grease. Other than drilling some holes for thread cutting screws to reattach the cover and having to cut a gasket from a corn flakes box, that was it.
Worked like a champ and I was down the road.
Rich
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