Common Window Regulator Installation Mistakes

You can always take the window out. It's just, I feel like it's a little bit safer to leave it in the car than leaving it out. You could drop it. Oh.

In this video, I'm gonna go over some common window regulator installation mistakes and the goal at the end of the day is to not break the glass. We wanna replace the window regulator on this vehicle. The first thing we've gotta do is take the door panel off. Now, every door panel is a little bit different. Some have fasteners all over the place, and some of those fasteners are covered up by trim pieces or even this switch plate. Once you get all those fasteners out, sometimes the panels have pushpins all around the perimeter of the door panel. They slide out or they are clipped in and they actually slide up.

So if you're trying to pull the panel off and it's too difficult, you're probably doing it wrong. Use a trim tool and go around the door panel. You don't wanna just grab the panel and rip it off like that. That's not good. And these push pins right here, if you yank and pull like that, you're probably gonna break some of these. If you use a trim tool, it's less likely of a chance to break. Sometimes they do break and you've got to replace them.

Also, if you just yanked and pulled, you have wires in these rods connected. You don't wanna break any of that stuff. So, yup, you can break the switch, disconnect the connector and make sure you push down on that tab. If you just yank and pull, you're probably gonna pull the wires right out of the switch. So don't do that. Push down on the tab. Make sure you don't rip this vapor barrier. There's just butyl tape holding it on. You don't wanna cut it and you wanna make sure you put it back afterwards, otherwise you're going to get moisture inside the vehicle.

At this point, we need to disconnect the window from the regulator. Now, if your regulator moves at all, or you can move the window down, you're gonna need to move it to the location where you can access the point where it's secured to the regulator. When doing this, you wanna be extremely careful. You wanna make sure you keep your fingers away from this. You're gonna obviously have to turn the key on. And if you have automatic windows, just be careful.

With the key off, just make sure it's a good idea to disconnect the motor. Because on this vehicle, even with the key off, the window still works. So you wanna be safe. This window regulator has clips that you need to remove to disconnect it. Some have screws, some have bolts, some have nuts. So when you take whatever type of fastener, oh, you wanna make sure you support the window, just hold it. All vehicles, the window regulators are slightly different when removing them from the window. And now I have it unattached. And you can slide the window all the way up.

At this point, you can either tape up the window. You can always take the window out. It's just, I feel like it's a little bit safer to leave it in the car than leaving it out. You could drop it, ah. I prefer to tape up the window. Anytime you're working with glass, you wanna be careful and you wanna make sure you use enough tape. It's always a good idea to have someone hold the window for you while you're trying to do this, because it's not that easy by yourself.

Make sure the glass is clean. If the glass isn't clean, the tape's not gonna stick. When you're pulling the window regulator out, a lot of these have cables and you just have to route the cables a certain way. And if it seems like you're trying to force something, if you have to use brute force, you're doing it wrong. You just move it a different way and it should come out fairly easily while you still have something attached.

There may be different holes. You may not have to take it out this hole, you might have to take it out of different role. Obviously not in this case, but there may be different areas where you get the window regulator out. And now that we have the regulators out, let's talk about the different types of regulators. We have the single cable style that we have, with one channel or the dual channel, with the same cable style, more of an X-Type. Then we have a mechanical style, it's kind of like a scissor. And then we have another mechanical that's actually a crank window.

Most of the newer regulators are this style with the cable, they're lighter and they're easier to install. Now when you're taking the motor off, you wanna be careful. If you were just replacing the motor and not the regulator, you don't want this regulator to come apart. You take the bolts out and slide this up carefully. See, if this wheel pops out and then that's gonna be a mess. Now, if you had a brand new regulator and you weren't replacing the motor, you were just transferring it over, there should be some kind of cover over this, so this doesn't happen before we put this all together. But if this does happen, it's not necessarily the end of the world. One of these cables will go on one direction and the other cable's gonna go in the other direction. Okay, so you get those lined up, push the springs in and you just twist this.

All right. So we got it back together, but it wasn't easy. So try as hard as possible not to get that centerpiece to fall out. And sometimes you'll have a cable pop off one of the wheels on the regulator. And if that's the case, you may think, oh, just popping the cable back on the wheel and you're good to go. But if that's the reason why your regulator failed, there's probably something wrong with the wheel. There's probably a little section where it's binding up or something. So just replace the regulator

And you also have mechanical type or gear type regulators. These are mostly on older vehicles. You'll still see them on some vehicles. And then if you had crank windows, it's gonna be set up similar to this and have a spring in the back here. And you wanna be careful of any moving parts when you're taking the motor off, because there is tension on this. It's spring loaded. And when that motor comes off, you definitely don't wanna have your fingers anywhere where you could get cut.

Some of these regulators are extremely sharp, and there's a lot of pinch points. So be careful, don't put your fingers in someplace like this. When you have a window regulator with two channels, you wanna make sure the channels are going correctly, and make sure the cables are not twisted around a couple of times. You don't want it to look like that or even look like this, where one channel's upside down. Obviously, you won't be able to line the bolts up.

And when you get it in there, you wanna make sure that that channel is closer to you than the glass. If you have the channel behind the glass, and then you go to tighten the bolts down, you're gonna smash the glass when you tighten those down. And the regulator with one channel, just to make sure the motor is spun the correct way when you're installing it. And find where the bolt holes are, and those are gonna be closer to you. Again, you don't want it on the opposite side of the glass. In other words, if you had the glass on this side and then you go to tighten these bolts down, it's just gonna pull the glass forward and break.

There's many different ways that the window actually attaches to the regulator. Some of them have a channel like the one I broke, that the window actually slides in the channel. This is fixed to the window. And then the regulator attaches with these two little buttons with those clips. You could also have a bracket that's actually glued to the window with some type of epoxy. Sometimes those brackets break and they're hard to get off. Some people actually use a torch or a heat gun to heat the bracket up, but you wanna be careful. You wanna disperse the heat evenly throughout the window. It's not very safe. If you heat just up a little area of the window, when you walk away within the next five minutes, the glass could shatter.

And then there's the clamp type. It may have two pieces of metal with a rubber piece in the middle, and there's a bolt. Now, these are important to note that you should always check the torque for these bolts and torque it properly. And for example purposes, we're using this little quarter glass window to show you what's gonna happen when you over-tighten this. Whoops. When you actually have the window all back together, everything's in, hopefully you have the weather strip in there. This actually protects the window when the window's all the way up. If you put the window all the way up without the weatherstripping, it is gonna contact metal. And if you're driving down the road, that's gonna rattle and eventually break the window.

But also the window on the edge of the window is more sensitive to breaking versus on the side. So if you put that up and it squishes it too much, it's probably going to break the window as well. So I guess we failed today, but I hope you learned something. I hope you enjoyed it. If there's anything I missed, any window regulator installation mishaps or mistakes that you've done that you shouldn't have, let me know in the comments. If you enjoyed this video or it helped you out, make sure you subscribe to our channel. Ring the bell, turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our videos.