This happened a few months ago. Since then its been in the garage awaiting surgery - its time came today!
I've never taken a Z3 door to bits so this was a new one on me. This forum provide me with some simple instruction to get the door card off but this is where the help ended. There was no advice that I could find that explained how to get the window and regulator out with the window in the fully down position. First I checked I was getting power to the motor by disconnecting the main power supply to the motor and testing for current in both the up and down positions - no problem there I had power on both terminals on the motor. Just to be sure i applied 12v to the individual pins 1 and 2 on the motor - nothing, so I assumed the motor to be dead. Next I removed the quarter light to give me some room to push the window forward. Its at this point that I found that whist I could just about get the front regulator 'push-up' slider off, there was no way that the rear one was going to come out as the window glass fouls on the forward metal motor support preventing it moving sufficiently forward.
I struggled with this for an hour and in end the only way I could find to move the window up sufficiently far to disconnect the regulator was to remove the motor unit from the drive by undoing the 4 x T20's - this is really awkward. I had to use a mini Torx socket on a 1/4 drive extension and a small socket wrench. This took an hour on its own! I then pried the motor off the end of the armature. By rotating the armature i got the window up and the unit out.
Question now is where to get a decent motor replacement? The 'scissor' part of the regulator seems to be in good condition and there are no signs of any of the fixing bolts having come loose although the widows were very slow to go up and down - I've read about this problem here and can see that the nylon bushings that run in the sliders are sticky, possibly worn and require lubrication.
So, I'm after some advice. Have members had any luck finding good replacements parts for these cars - I stripped the motor which wasn't turning - the rear bearing appears seized. I may be able to repair that but the brushes are also very worn - is it possible to buy rebuild kits?
I've never taken a Z3 door to bits so this was a new one on me. This forum provide me with some simple instruction to get the door card off but this is where the help ended. There was no advice that I could find that explained how to get the window and regulator out with the window in the fully down position. First I checked I was getting power to the motor by disconnecting the main power supply to the motor and testing for current in both the up and down positions - no problem there I had power on both terminals on the motor. Just to be sure i applied 12v to the individual pins 1 and 2 on the motor - nothing, so I assumed the motor to be dead. Next I removed the quarter light to give me some room to push the window forward. Its at this point that I found that whist I could just about get the front regulator 'push-up' slider off, there was no way that the rear one was going to come out as the window glass fouls on the forward metal motor support preventing it moving sufficiently forward.
I struggled with this for an hour and in end the only way I could find to move the window up sufficiently far to disconnect the regulator was to remove the motor unit from the drive by undoing the 4 x T20's - this is really awkward. I had to use a mini Torx socket on a 1/4 drive extension and a small socket wrench. This took an hour on its own! I then pried the motor off the end of the armature. By rotating the armature i got the window up and the unit out.
Question now is where to get a decent motor replacement? The 'scissor' part of the regulator seems to be in good condition and there are no signs of any of the fixing bolts having come loose although the widows were very slow to go up and down - I've read about this problem here and can see that the nylon bushings that run in the sliders are sticky, possibly worn and require lubrication.
So, I'm after some advice. Have members had any luck finding good replacements parts for these cars - I stripped the motor which wasn't turning - the rear bearing appears seized. I may be able to repair that but the brushes are also very worn - is it possible to buy rebuild kits?
