Window regulators

[Chongo]

2004 disco 2 window regulators:
My wife was taking a few co workers to lunch the other day and she told me Robert kept on raising and lowering the passenger window with his arm resting on it. well the end result was he broke the plastic wheel in the track……..
I took it apart and Called LR in thousand oaks 818-889-8398 to get a price on the plastic wheel……… I was told I cannot buy the plastic wheel, it is sold as the whole regulator assembly………….. $184.00 plus tax
Instead of a little ten cent plastic wheel, shoot, I’d pay even $10.00 for the wheel, but only available through LR per whole unit.
Well, I thought, lets make one. I took a old aluminum framing square that I got from Home depot and it had a piece on it that measured
W = 1.000” H = .201” L = 2.125” and it slid in the window track well. I drilled a 1/4” hole through it so the new axle/ rivet would pass through it. I drilled the original rivet/ plastic wheel axle out of the regulator arm with a 1/8” drill. Then I put a 1/4” x 1.5” with a ½” shoulder bolt in my lathe, or you can use a drill press, or drill in a vise, I chucked the bolt in the lathe @ the end of the threads, I filed off the hex, then moved down the smooth non threaded 1/4” shoulder about .150” and filed it down to .135” just enough to get my sloppy 1/8” washers on it. I filed down the head of the bolt to a thickness of .100” and filed a radius on the outside of the head opposite of the shoulder. This makes the axle and rivet to hold the aluminum slide. I took A ½” drill bit and ground it flush on the end. Then I sharpened the end of the drill to cut flush at the bottom instead of angled like regular drills. This way I can use the drill to broach out the aluminum to recess the machined bolt head. I broached into the ( H = .201” ) about .100” deep.

I assembled it with grease first then pushed the machined rivet through the aluminum and passed the 1/8” stub through the regulator arm. Then I put the washer on it and penned over the 1/8” portion that protruded pass the washer………………. Ready for assembly. I did grease the track up well.
The slide is no longer a plastic wheel, but don’t worry, The plastic wheels don’t turn in the track either. It worked awesome………………………………………..
It took about 3 hours total……………………………………………………………

Pictures and cad drawings available upon request.
Drawing formats are available in .DWG or .DXF or TCW or DWF or JPEG or PDF or BMP and WMF – only, please specify which one.

I hope this helps……………. Chongo

 

[raymor]

Thanks Joey I will forward this to my son and see if his machinist can whip one of these up. Looks pretty easy.

 

[limit35]

http://www.discoweb.org/rearwindowregulator/index.htm

This link has a hack to replace the plastic wheel as well. Surprisingly heating the nylon washer with a torch (quickly) and popping it over the rivet works really well, it cools and keeps the original form more or less. I don't remember having to pry the channel open if somebody uses the above link though, I don't like maiming things that don't need to be mai^M^M^M weakened.

 

[raymor]

On the 97 disco they have a pretty big flat head on the rivit/axle and there is no way that a nylon wheel would streach that much. I guess I could make up a hole new axle for it. Just don't know whether that would be worth the time.