Installation of regulators

[Big_Richard]

passenger side is complete, movement is perfect, all the way up and all the way down with a smooth and quick pace. Only one minor adjustment was required after assembly.

hand cleaned everything that was being reused, everything new and original alike has been lubricated with white window regulator grease.

Disassembled motor, inspected and pumped its gearbox full of new general purpose grease.

I'll take photos when i do the drivers side possibly tomorrow or the day after.

no problems encountered, except i discovered another hidy hole for rust to develop on w116's, this is where the dicast triangular wing mirror mount surrounded by a rubber seal bolts in, the lower, tray piece is replaceable. It was not penetrating thankfully and looked worse than it was. I have used a rust killing agent on it, etch primed it and then caked the entire area with cavity wax prior to reassembly.



time taken, a relaxed, no rushing 3.5 hours, including much time buggerising around washing things and fixing that rust.

[TJ 450]

Bloody good.

That rust doesn't look too bad... I would imagine that it is because of the foam around the triangular piece holding water.

Tim

[Big_Richard]

the best part about this particular job was that i could sit in a plastic outdoor furniture chair during the entire job, at the door. Everything was there and only a small selection of tools are required.

no hunting around for missing/lost tools, no back breaking and no acrobatics required. All in all, a very satisfactory experience.

[TJ 450]

That's how it should be.

Thankfully, part of this weekend's activities involves sorting out my tools... That's long overdue. There's nothing worse than spending half the day looking for tools.

Tim

[Big_Richard]

drivers side is complete now. This time only took a very relaxed 3 hours   

drivers side required alot more stuffing around adjustment wise to get it perfect. The only thing that could be a result of is a bent rail or worn glass - everything else is new.

crusty old regulators, ready for the tip,




drivers side installed...



PS, the cat always has clean drinking water and food - but for some reason insists on drinking putrefied water lying around the back yard...

[s class]

MT, are the new regulators indeed identical to the original?

[Big_Richard]

I wasn't able to spot any differences.

One can only hope the quality of the metal used to cast the frame is of a higher quality that the originals.

if the windows move up and down easily then i cant see the regulator being under too much strain, unless its actually the clock spring that does all the damage. It seems like it could be...

EDIT: The part numbers for the regulators have been replaced by another 116 part number since the cars were produced, so something has definitely changed with them as to what i don't know.

[wbrian63]

I think the primary contributing factor to the failure of the lift mechanisms is how "gummy" the grease gets on the vertical bar and the horizontal channel at the base of the window.  When I broke #1164, I was amazed at 1) how distorted the lift mechanisms were, particularly in the cast section that supports the gears, and 2) how sticky the lube was where things should slide smoothly.

That, and the normal wear of the nylon inserts there attached. If you look at the design of the mechanism, there's a huge amount of torque required to lift the window, and a fair amount of drag on the vertical bar. If things don't move easily, then bad things will happen as the system strains to lift the glass.

I don't know if W116 cars have it, but on the W140, there were a pair of stop bolts that were adjustable. They allowed you to control the maximum upward and downward travel of the mechanism. Key to these stops is the fact that they're located on the lift mechanism where when contacted, they confine the force transmitted away from the actual lifting arms. This limits the flexing of the lift mechanism when the window reaches the extreme limit of travel. If the W116 mechanisms have this feature, be sure to set it properly. There's a lot of torque available in the lift motors - allowing that torque to travel beyond the motor to the lift arm when bottomed or topped out just causes everything to flex.

Regards