Need a little advice. 2004 Mini S Coupe: We have what we suspect is a bad driver's side window regulator. We have a new OEM replacement but we can't seem to get the old one out. The problem is the window is fully up and we can't get the two window clamps (cog shaped) to back fully out to remove the window. We have them loose but they run into the out door skin before coming fully out.

BTW, I made a tool that can loosen them from the outside after the upper door trim is removed. Will gladly share the design if anyone's interested. All that was required to make it was a spring, some fasteners and a 24" piece of 1/8" x 3/4" plain steel flat (Lowe's of Home Depot has it.) Tools used to make the tools included an abrasive cut-off saw (hack saw would work), drill press (hand drill would work) and a 6" bench grinder (could use hacck saw and drill instead.

 

I finally managed to get the window lowered enough to get the glass clamps out by cutting the old regulator cables. Regulator was definitely bad, missing several teeth at the motor drive.

While I was at it, I replaced to door lock actuator as well. Everything functions as it's supposed to know.

 

Great job.

 

Since retiring, I do all of our maintenance, repair and restoration work. I have a fully outfitted shop/man-cave which makes it fun.

I always wave. But, I don't get to drive the Mini often. It's the wife's. My DD is at the other end of the spectrum, a Jeep Grand Cherokee. I generally have to satisfy my small car cravings with my '65 Bug.

I hope to have my '71 TR6 restored and on the road again next year

 

not to revive an old thread, but I replaced my regulator a year ago, now the motor gave out (yeah I should have done them both at once, but financially it wasn't in the cards...). Anywho, it took forever to get the regulator out because, like the OP said, the front cog was jammed so far up, it wouldn't come off the window. Finally got the regulator loose enough to drop it down the glass and get to the clamp. Great, window out, regulator/motor sitting on my bench. The regulator is so far up the channel that I cannot reach the torx screw holding the motor to the the mount (the one t20 you need to remove it from the frame). How do I "lower" the mounts to get to the torx screw with a dead motor. I am not going to cut the cables, as the regulator is fairly new. Ideas, suggestions? I am on a break and on my first Guinness

 

Not sure I have the answer, but I didn't find imbibing Guinness anywhere in the Bentley Manual;-)

 

True, it's Irish, but dammit, it makes the job less frustrating.

BTW, I had to completely remove the bolts for the regulator, and pull it down to reach the cog clamp. It turns out the motor (on it's last leg) shoved the glass so far up, it stuck. I removed the cover off the motor over the brushes, turned the windings by hand and it popped loose so I could remove the old motor and install the new one. My "1 hour" job turned into about a 4 hour affair (less the half hour "anger management" break-Guinness ). Everything works fine now, next, put on new wheels and get ready for AMVIV!!

 

Well a drunk irishman is a better electrician than a sober englishman, so you're off to a good start.

For what it's worth, my passenger window gets stuck in the up position all the time when the weather is warm. A bang on the door just above the speaker right when I hold the window switch down frees it up every time. That's about all I can handle when it comes to electrical system maintenance.

- andy

 

Take off the door panel. Use a metal bar about a foot long and a hammer to loosen the ***** holding the glass. Don’t bother unscrewing them all the way yet. Take out the three screws near the front holding the motor. Take out the four bolts holding the lift mechanism. Two are in the bottom of the door and are in slots so make sure you can tell where they go back. Two near the top are behind plastic caps. One cap is behind the tweeter. Now move the bottom ends of both lift channels toward each other. This will drop the window far enough to remove the clamp *****. In my case the front **** was still blocked by the power mirror connector. Unplug the mirror and take the mirror off (pivot the mirror to get at the three allen screws).

With the clamps out you can lift the glass out through the top.

Now you can fold the bottoms in more, unplug the motor, and take the regulator out of the door. Note the the regulator cables run through plastic clips inside the top of the door opening. There are tabs at the bottoms of the clips to open them.

I found out that the motor wasn’t actually dead. If you hear a little “thunk” from the door when you try to move the window up or down, it’s just stuck. I lubricated the cables and tracks and the window is back to working.

 

I fought this same problem last weekend, 2004 R50 with 5 speed manual.

I took the motor/regulator loose from the inside door panel to get a little working room, then using the Braille method I took the four torx screws out and separated the motor from the rest of the regulator.

Once the motor and shaft were out, it was easy to push the window down to get at those toothed washers.

My motor read open, and +/- 12 volts at the wiring harness connector when toggling switch up and down.

The armature shaft of the motor is also half of a worm gear, once that’s separated the window can be moved up or down with little difficulty.

I took a couple of pictures that I could post here if someone needs it clarified.

 

Please post the pics as the passenger side window on my '04 is stuck in the up position. Thanks.

 

I’ll try to get the pictures posted tonight; one more thing I forgot to add was to remove the lower door speaker so you can get both hands in there.

 

Sorry about the large pictures! I wanted to make sure I call out a few details so that they're clear to all who try this.



The yellow arrow points out the electrical connector to the motor. There are two prongs inside (can be seen in next picture) and if checked with an ohmmeter should read about 1 ohm or less. If the meter reads infinity, the
brushes in the motor are worn out and no longer make contact. If the ohmmeter reads higher than a few ohms, or jumps around erratically, same story - the brushes are on the ragged edge of failure.

Just to confirm the motor is the problem, I put my digital volt meter probes in the wiring harness connector and tried operating the switch to move the window up and down. I got 12 volts positive in one direction, 12 volts negative in the
other. The car's wiring was not the problem.

The 4 torx screws in the red circles and arrows (on both pictures) are what have to be removed to get the metal field magnet housing off of the rest of the plastic window regulator. Once that's loose, the motor armature shaft and
brush rigging (of which the blue connector is a part) will drop out with it. NOTE: The motor shaft extends up into the plastic part of the regulator, and is one half of a worm gear reduction. Once the shaft is out, the window can be
moved up and down as necessary.




I have some more parts coming for the door itself next week. While I'm back in there, I'll take a few more pictures (smaller size) and post them up with a few more details.

Dan

 

Re-reading the above thread, JohnWasser's procedure would have likely worked better than what I did - I wound up taking both of the lift mechanisms out of the door anyway.

I had focused on just getting the window down far enough to get the toothed washers out.