After
pulling away from
the McD's drive thru this morning I rolled up
the window. To my dismay I heard a disturbing sound. An audible snap
and crunch and the window disappeared into the door. No broken glass
and the motor still worked. What to do, what to do... I'll call
Steve,
he'll know what to do. After consulting the XJ Bible (FSM), the all and
powerful Oz...err Steve, thought it may be either one of the bolts
snapped that holds the window or something happened to the regulator.
Neither of us broke a window like this before so we had no idea. To the
Phantum Lair. First thing we needed to do was get into the door. We
removed the panel and water dam (the piece of plastic that covers the
inside of the door) and were able to see the inside of the door. After
the initial "Get To Know How the Window
Worked Phase," we decided that the piece pictured below used to have
gear teeth (the blue part):
and a close-up of the broken teeth
Tools Used:
- 10 mm Socket
- Phillips Screwdriver
The window attaches to this piece with two
bolts which is attached to the track seen in the picture below. The
motor moves a coil that rides the teeth on the track moving the window
up and down. It is easier if you remove the window while the regulator
is still attached to the door, it pulls out of the track pretty easily.
The regulator is attached to the door with 6 bolts and with some slight
manipulation also removes easily from the door frame. Install is the
reverse. It only took about 20 minutes to get it all hooked back up.
The whole kit is called
the regulator and comes all in one package. The parts guy said that the
price ranges from $280 to $80 depending on the model and year. My '98,
4 door XJ cost $122 and some change. After comparing the new part to
the old one, we saw that the teeth were mainly made of metal (wonder
why they changed it from plastic). All and all, it took about two hours
to fix, most of the time was spent trying to figure out what happened
and getting the part from the dealership. I met another XJ owner
tonight that said this happened to both of his front doors, and a DC
parts guy once told me that if they get a request for a part more than
three times a year they will stock it. This was in stock, so it sounds
like a common occurrence.
