eBay window regulator for $42.83 - not for the faint of heart!

[elgyqc]

For the huge difference in price from the Porsche part and even the URO one I decided to try it. The comments were mostly positive, one said it was difficult to adjust.
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Passengers-Front-Power-Window-Lift-Regulator-for-Porshe-911-996-Series-Boxster/233382673928?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
This model comes with a built in adjuster for cable length, which is a plus.
I was expecting to have some issues,.. first was the challenge of fitting the motor to the plate of the regulator. The hole in the plate through which the drive gear shaft projects was not centered, so I ground it out a bit. Then I saw that that the motor was not seating all the way onto the plate. After much measuring, experimenting and musing I figured that the three points where the “feet” on the motor housing mate to the plate are not as deep as on the original plate. This meant that the drive gear would not seat the final 1/16th of an inch in its splined socket. I ended up filing a bit off the “feet” and it now fits properly. I imagine if I had not noticed this it would have worked anyway, I was worried that the gear would be loose enough that the splines would wear prematurely.
Once the motor installed I tried installing in the door. I had a problem lining up the four mounting bolts for the rails and the rails seemed to be twisted a bit so that the bottoms were not parallel to the V shaped mounting points.
I pulled everything out and discovered that one of the nylon fittings through which the cable passes to feed to the sprocket was broken and had been pulled out of position by the tension on the cable. This shortened that run of cable and that was why I couldn’t line up the mounting points.
I’m not sure if the fitting was broken when I received the regulator or if I broke it. The fitting looks OK in a photo I took after laying it out on a work bench, but there was a hole in the shipping box. (Note to self, do a careful examination after unwrapping new parts). After considering how long it would take for a replacement to arrive I decided to do a work around… which seems to have worked. I learned that it is possible to remove the cable from the sprockets and then put it back in place, although it was a bit of a challenge.
As for the twisted rails - I don’t think that there is a problem, the rails will twist a bit as the bottom bolts are tightened and they ended up properly aligned.
So I reinstalled it… then the Bentley book ticked me to the fact that there is a stop at the bottom of the front rail that has to be in the top position for a Boxster. I found that on my regulator it was in the bottom (911?) position and that it was riveted in place! No mention of this on the ebay ad. So it all came out again (I’m starting to get good at this). I drilled out the rivet and put a machine screw in to hold it where it should be… and back it went into the door.
Finally I got to test it and it works, a bit noisy but once I did the necessary adjustments it seemed OK.
So my conclusions…
1) The fitting of the motor to the plate may or may not be a problem, but I would do the modifications to make it fit properly.
2) The broken fitting… I’ll accept that it was my fault… be careful while inserting the regulator into the door. it is easy to put tension on the cables that could break those fittings.
3) It is unfortunate that the positioning of the stop is not documented with the part… and that it is riveted in place… but the fix is easy enough.
For the difference in price I would do this again… especially since I now know what to expect.

Now I am back where I started 2 weeks ago… the original problem was that the passenger door window was not dropping properly when the door was opened. The regulator broke while I was working on that.

I can post photos and more detail if anyone is interested in using this, or a similar bargain regulator.

[78F350]

I think that's the regulator that came in my red car. When I bought the car, the passenger window didn't do the drop when the door was opened. I thought I'd have to replace the regulator until I saw the built in cable adjuster. I just had to do a few turns to take out slack and the window has worked fine since.

[tonythetiger]

im happy with the URO regulators and have done this swap on my 3 cars without any issues through the years. Swapped them for a few friends as well. The bearing design also improved the window performance. I was surprised to hear on the forums that several folks had these fail, but my experience is in the past 3 years or so, perhaps the bugs are worked out? URO is my choice from real world experience.

[elgyqc]

Two years later it is still working...