*Theme song for Fresh Prince of Bel-Air plays in the background*
Now this is a story all about how
My window stuck right down
And I'd like to take a minute
Just sit right there
I'll tell you how I repaired this thing right here:
So, as you can see, one cable is broken. The internet wisdom is that it's just a bike cable, and you just put it in, and hey-presto! things are fixed. But this is not that kind of story, because that would be a boring post...
Anyway, on with the shenanigans!
I took the motor off the slider, so the ends of cables were free, this made it easier to clean the old grease out.
The white thing under the cover with the 2 screws I've decided is named "Barrel, Minor Deity of the Window Mechanism", you will offer many prayers and curses in His name.
The individual cables are wound on to opposite ends of the barrel so one grows and one shrinks, causing the window mechanism to move.
The window-up cable is the broken one here (bottom cable externally), and it's at the top of the barrel as you look at it, the window-down cable (top cable externally) starts at the bottom of the barrel.....for the driver's side, I'll let y'all know when I do the passenger's side.
Rags supplied by the supermarket's brand 20-pack, in the cooler months used ones start the fire in the shed like nobody's business.
This cable is both bent, and frayed, and it's the "good" one... I thought I could get away with it, but this one needs to be done next.
I (now) know what causes this: a lack of tension in the cables, which means the cable wraps up (or pulls) on the cable on the barrel instead of moving the window for a small amount each movement, stressing the cable, fraying it, and eventually breaking it. If you have a cable that looks like this, it needs to be replaced too, otherwise it will cause the new cable to fail in the same way due to a lack of tension.
Remember to wind the black cable tensioners on the motor all the way in once you pull the wires out, you'll need the adjustment later. I didn't, it wasn't fun...but I did learn about the bunching/tension thing, so that was nice.... If it makes a crunching sound when you first run it, that means you get to do it again! All Hail Barrel Deity!
Definitely have a friend or some kind of genetic mutation that gives you and extra set of hands. Maybe a vice. A swarm of nano-bots if you've got 'em. Anything more than two hands is a must.
We start with this bad boy right here, it's 1.7 Meters of mouintain bike brake cable.
As you can see, It's not even remotely the same size, the original item fits snugly in the hole. It was time for surgery!
I used a hacksaw to cut the meat off the sides, and a file to shrink it radially. I also then, stupidly, cut the cable to the "right" length. Do not do that. It is not a good idea. It is the kind of idea that leads to regret. Just lop the unwanted end off the cable, and cut it to length once it's tensioned. Trrrrruussst me.
Eventually it fit snugly into The Great Barrel.
All wound up on His Holy Benevolence, Barrel. This is waaayyy too loose. Attach the cables to the slider so you can get a good amount of tension on it before you try to move it. Do not run the motor without tension on the cables or you will get to roll the cable back onto His Malevolent Omniscience, Barrel.
Notice how the tensioners still aren't screwed in here? Yeah, Future Cus is going to have a bad time.
Because the cable I had didn't have the other end in the required location, I used a bolt and a washer with a flanged nut to clamp the cable in place. This is where cutting the cable came back to get me. I should have done it like this:
But that may interfere with it going all the way down... I may need come up with another solution. Future Cus will work this out for us.
I got it reassembled (a few times) and in the car, and tensioned, and all sorts of good things, and took exactly no photos, because i just didn't have enough arms and legs left to work a camera as well. Anyway, installation is just the reverse of removal ;)
It's bunching up a little bit here. That means there isn't enough tension in the system and this cable is eventually going to fail the same way, so I needed to replace both of them at the same time.
Notice the tensioners? Yup... I completely forgot about them until approximately this time... But I
was fighting an uphill battle because of the other cable being dodgy and impossible to pull enough tension on.
...and I did exactly no research on this matter. ...
I just figured it would work and the cable was only "like, I dunno, 3.95 man?" at the bike shop, so it was a pretty small gamble.
I've also devised a method of holding the window up with zip ties as well, so I've got options. I should have got photos of this. It's basically a bolt with two nuts in place of the middle-top end-stop and a zip tie around bolt and the end-stop on the window pulling the window up. It holds the window up, but I wouldn't drive too far.
Proposed method: wind the tensioners all the way in, use two fresh cables, don't cut them to length, tension it up as tight as possible via the mounting method I devise, then used the tensioners to wind in some extra tension, offer sacrifices to The Almighty Barrel, test it, only if it's successful cut the excess off.
Here we have the net result of the cable being bolted in it's current location, the top of the runner needs that space to get all the way up. Conveniently, having the end stops set all the way down stops it almost the same time, so it "shouldn't" destroy the roller, plus I have the current limit thingy going on with the arduino so once it's at the predefined maximum load it will turn the motor off. This usually triggered after crunchy sounds too. I
shouldn't kill the roller from binding up on the bolt before next weekend at any rate.
So now I'm up to sourcing 4 more cables, and working on a better cable attachment system. I might even put some effort into finding ones of the correct end size to make life a little bit better. Or even part numbers... anything is possible!
(I know, I lied, it's not fixed)
)
