Finally got round to fitting the door panels that Jim Ley did for me. With the door card, foam, and vinyl covering, the window winder is snug and likely to rub (wear) against the vinyl covering. Bought a plastic spacer online and it lasted a few minutes for the plastic teeth broke. Any ideas/suggestions? Can you get metal spacers that won't break/wear within seconds of using them?
I’ve just had a winder handle break and apparently it’s a common issue in so far as my mate buys them in ten at a time because of frequent breakages at his yard. So I’ve got one of his. That’ll tide me over for a while but I’ve looked over on eBay at the ally or the chromed ones and they come with various spacers in a kit. Might be more hard wearing, but we’ll know more when it arrives, Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,I’ll let you know once they’re here.
This is what I use on my bay and T3 They are off 70's Fords - XY Falcon for example here in Australia. They lift up nicely to clear door lining Minor modification needed to open screw recess
Looks great Barry, my family had a white Falcon Station wagon, the one with the round tail lights a bit like a MK1 Cortina. My mum used to drag the sides along the gateposts coming up the drive. She wasn’t fussy either, she had no preference as to which side got hit most. To be fair, she could only just see over the steering wheel and I don’t think she could see as far as the end of the bonnet. Think this may have been the first of the Ozzie Falcons. Loved the panel vans, they looked great, I should imagine they’re worth an absolute fortune nowadays. Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,happy memories
The fancy chrome ones are normally crap. Made of cheese and round off quickly. Get some grease in your mechanism
What a notion! Hadn’t even contemplated that. The window getting slightly stiffer is probably the last straw for that winder handle. I’ll get the cards off I reckon and give everything a nice once over, clean up and lube. Might even get a bit of silicon on the back of the rubber seals and the scrapers. Might even look at making them automatic. Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,every time I do a little job, three more materialise as if out of thin air
If you have OG winders grease them up and silicone the felt, before the gear cracks in the winder mechanism. I use a chrome handle, I glue them on with a spot of epoxy glue to stop them slipping on the softer splines of the nasty new Brazilian mechanisms. To release, loosen socket head screw until it is proud by 1 or 2mm, tap with a small hammer to release the epoxy..
I used BMW 3 series motors from eBay to convert the cab windows to electric, TheSamba has a good thread about the modification. https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/v...=0&postorder=asc&highlight=bmw window&start=0 The drive gear on the motor is identical to the VW hand crank gear and two of the mounting bolts on the motor line up with the existing holes in the door once they are elongated by a couple of mm. BMW part numbers are: 51 33 1 386 987, motor left and 51 33 1 386 988, motor right.
It's not just grease, handles break when the windows are stiff because of out of kilter adjustment and the felts gripping them. Felts - avoid anything that looks like flock covered rubber. Don't squash/kink the main felt in general, attention to sliding it down into the door. If you have to wind them down, rather than taking up the slack as gravity does the job something is less than optimum. That stress will strain everything between the window and your hand.
I am officially on the hunt for those now. Next winter is supposed to be the tarting up the cab time. So if I don’t manage to break anything else, that’s the plan. Ozziedog,,,,,,,,the list just gets longer
It looks like the motors are hard to find now, I bought mine from eBay USA in 2007 for less than $20 but the total including shipping and tax was $65.99. Try the BMW specialist breakers.
I think that samba thread has a handle that is a switch, but it’s not a VW handle. I used switches that I had left over from an electric window conversion on my MGB, double switch on the driver’s door, single on the passenger side.
