Window not coming down upon entering - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Dave S. · 07-24-2010, 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Viper5

I don't know what you mean when you say it looked stretched out. And that 1/2 way rolled down statement didn't make sense to me. Were you having the same problem as me or a variation? I don't understand your original problem.

I had the exact same symptoms as you have. The window worked just fine, but would not drop enought to clear the top when you opened the door.
In my case it turned out that the cable system in the window regulator had stretched out. If I opend the door, I could manually push the window down about 1/2 inch by pushing down on the glass. When I closed the door the window would go back up as normal.
I disconnected the battery when removing the inner door panel, then reconnected it to watch the mechanism work. I found that with the window rolled 1/2 way down, I could pull up on the glass and make the window move up and downabout 1/2 inch by just pulling up on the glass itself. This is very different from my driver's door, where the window stays where it is.
I found that the cable had stretched out, so I needed to take up some of the slack. It's not perfect, but it now drops enough to clear the top by adding the spacers to the cable sleeves as shown on my pictures.
Hopes that helps.
Dave S.

Viper5 · 07-24-2010, 04:49 PM

I don't recall if my drivers side door is able to move by grabbing on the window itself, but your problem is exactly like mine as far as the passenger side. I am able to move it about 1/2 inch up or down on the problematic window before I started removing everything. I am going to try and tighten the line using zipties like you did when I get some daylight tomorrow. You put them in two different locations. Is there a reason for this? How did you know how many to put on? I'm not sure how adding the zipties tightens up the slack, but I'll have to take a look at what is going on tomorrow now that I have a much better idea of what to look for. Hopefully, mine has been stretched out too and can be fixed.

Bellster · 07-24-2010, 07:54 PM

Do it once and do it right buy window regulator and replace all the info on here with great pic....

Dave S. · 07-24-2010, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Viper5

I don't recall if my drivers side door is able to move by grabbing on the window itself, but your problem is exactly like mine as far as the passenger side. I am able to move it about 1/2 inch up or down on the problematic window before I started removing everything. I am going to try and tighten the line using zipties like you did when I get some daylight tomorrow. You put them in two different locations. Is there a reason for this? How did you know how many to put on? I'm not sure how adding the zipties tightens up the slack, but I'll have to take a look at what is going on tomorrow now that I have a much better idea of what to look for. Hopefully, mine has been stretched out too and can be fixed.

It's the same as tightening up the brake cable on your bike, except that there is no adjuster. By spacing the outer sheath of the cable back, it tightens the cable. The only reason I did it in 2 spots was to take up more of the slack. It's still a little loose, but at least it now drops enough to open and close the door.

I agree that you could just buy a new regulator for about $140 and fix it until that one stretches out too, or you can spend 5 cents worth of zip ties, you can fix it for a while and see how long it lasts. At least you have learned that taking the door inner skin off is an easy task and since you don't have to disassemble or remove the regulator it's a really easy fix, so no big deal if you have to go back into it later with a more permanent fix.
After adding the zip ties and reconnecting the battery after re-assembling the door panel to the door, I ran the windows up and down so they could re-learn where they are and the auto up down feature was reset.
I'm going to leave mine as is until it stops working just to see how long it lasts. I think I'm going to order some bicycle brake cable adjusters and see if I can adapt one to work as an adjuster for the window regulator.

Viper5 · 07-25-2010, 05:46 AM

My wire is also a bit loose so I put some ties on there and tested it out. It was definitely working. So I put everything back together and at first it was still working but the window would come maybe twice as far as it normally does and would still come up correctly, but then it stopped doing that. I'll just take it apart again and see what I can do.

Upon further inspection, it's almost as if the window is stuck when the top is up. When I am just testing the window when it's not shut using a screwdriver or something where the switch is, the window does seem to go up and down the normal distance. As soon as I shut the door with the top up, it doesn't have the same range of motion. When the top is down, it works again. I think this is why I thought it was working at first (because the door wasn't shut)

Viper5 · 07-25-2010, 11:43 AM

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

I went to a local bike shop to try and get one of those brake adjustors, but they didn't have what I wanted. I'm not sure how exactly Dave was going to hook it up that way. So then I went to autozone to see if they had anything that could grab the wire and pull it together closer. Nothing. I decided to go back home and take it apart again and see if there was anything further I could do. I noticed that the wire was still a bit looser than I had wanted, so in order to tighten it further, I had to take that spring piece out of the socket on the topside to fit another ziptie in. It seemed like it had a decent tightness to it so I put it back together with the sacrifice of having that piece not go in the slot it was designed to and it works perfectly for now. Like it was new and mimics the drivers side.

Thank you so much everyone for your help!

sb01box · 07-25-2010, 12:02 PM

my 01 just underwent door lock repair and now it seems that the small drop down of the window is acting up. just like this thread.
Is the root problem the outer sleeving loosing it's strength and making the cable system sloppy? if so, by taking the slop out of the system by only pulling on the inner cable and placing a spacer without addressing the outer sleeve a very short term solution? more permanent fix would be to make sure that the outer sleeve does not further degrade (collapse)?

thanks in advance

Viper5 · 07-25-2010, 12:49 PM

I believe the root problem is that over time, the cable will stretch, thus the regulator does not pull the same distance as it should even though it is doing the same amount of rotation. By placing zipties or other spacer applications in spots which pull the cable, you can tighten the cable up and thus the distance is the same as it was originally.

Dave S. · 07-26-2010, 03:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Viper5

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

I went to a local bike shop to try and get one of those brake adjustors, but they didn't have what I wanted. I'm not sure how exactly Dave was going to hook it up that way. So then I went to autozone to see if they had anything that could grab the wire and pull it together closer. Nothing. I decided to go back home and take it apart again and see if there was anything further I could do. I noticed that the wire was still a bit looser than I had wanted, so in order to tighten it further, I had to take that spring piece out of the socket on the topside to fit another ziptie in. It seemed like it had a decent tightness to it so I put it back together with the sacrifice of having that piece not go in the slot it was designed to and it works perfectly for now. Like it was new and mimics the drivers side.

Thank you so much everyone for your help!

Glad it worked for you also.
I was careful not to pull any of the outer sleeves from the holes they go into at their ends because I wanted to make sure the cable didn't chafe against anything. The cable end acts a guide to ensure the cable has a straight shot to the wheel in each corner and to the regulator driver assembly in the middle. I found that you can use a single wire tie on any given end and up two on the spring end that goes into the regulator. Of course the lower front corner (behind the door speaker) is the easiest to get to.
I also didn't want to disable the spring mechanism where the cable goes into the bottom of the regulator as it absorbs a shock load when the window hits the stops that limit the window travel. I used wire tie spacers to pre-load the spring a bit more.
In any event, the investment to try this fix is so minimal it's worth it. If it doesn't work you are only as bad off as you were before.

Dave S. · 07-26-2010, 03:48 AM

I was thinking about adding something to the system at one corner along these lines so that as the cable stretches you could easily adjust it to take out the slack. My only concern is that you can fit it onto the existing outer sheath end and that it won't make contact with the cable causing it to chafe over time:

http://www.amazon.com/BRAKE-LEVER-CABLE-ADJUSTER-ACTION/dp/B001APWR00

It's importat that the adjuster barrell and the locking nut are both slotted so you can install them onto the existing cable and sleeve. It would be ideal if the existing outer sleeve end would fit into the adjuster barrell without modification.

I'm going to try this and see if it works as a more "engineered" fix for this extremely annoying and totally unacceptable problem with the window regulator design.
My belief is that if you can keep the cable adjusted, then the regulator will not fail in the long run as the drive mechanism won't slip and fray the cable. Not sure if that's a correct assumption, but again, once you have this problem, for $4 and 30 minutes of your time, why not give it a try.

Dave S.