Window Regulator Advice

[jsullyboy]

Hi Folks

I am trying to fix a creaking window. Got the door card off cleaned and regreased the tracks. I have the SOS plastic bushing for the regulator. This is 100% the problem as I found fragments of the old ones floating around the door.

The SOS instructions are not the best, so I am looking for some guidance.

Looks like I need to have the window lowered to remove the bolts connecting the regulator to the glass. Then I need to raise the window again to get the regulator out. What is the safest bet here? Prop up the glass with a board?

It's not clear looking at the shop manual how to get the window out completely. Looks like to do that I would need to remove the stoppers and plastic chrome along the top of the door?

Thanks for your help

 

[Wild Turkey]

Don't remove the window glass entirely!

You can take the regulator out with the window at the top, or part way down to line up the forward of the two bolts holding the glass with a hole in the door panel. Put a horizontal strip of packing tape on the exterior of the window, half on the glass & half on the seal, to hold the window so you don't drop & break it. With the window in either location, you can remove the regulator without moving the window, but it's easier to remove the regulator with the window at the top, but easier to reinsert the bolts later with the window in the middle, lined up with that bolt hole. The SM has a bunch of extra steps, but Hugo's instructions are probably easiest, if you have ratchet wrenches and thin fingers for putting the 2 window bolts back in from the top. If you take out the regulator with the window in the middle, you'll have to connect it electrically and bring it to the top before doing Hugo's window repair inside the motor unit, then put it back in the middle (from the top, after preloading the spring at the top) to reinstall it. I think @Chris_Lum will be doing a vid on it soon, but you probably don't want to wait for that?

Then all you do is remove the 2 bolts holding the glass to the regulator and 4 bolts securing the regulator. Circle the bolts holding the regulator with a magic marker so you can put them back in the same spot. 3 bolts holding the regulator motor only need to be loosened to get that out. (Of course disconnect the wiring connector to the regulator motor.)

Has anybody got the .pdf for Hugo's window fixit install?

My search turned up a couple of 404's on prime referencing the pdf on the Hugo Window Fixit install. I did it on my previous NSX & I thought I remembered a document as well, in addition to the video. I'm doing it now so if anyone has that pdf, please let me know.

www.nsxprime.com

As it says there, you should both watch the video and read the .pdf instructions. Hope that helps.

 

[jsullyboy]

You can take the regulator out with the window at the top or part way down to line up the forward of the two bolts holding the glass with a hole in the door panel. Put a horizontal strip of packing tape on the exterior of the window, half on the glass & half on the seal, to hold the window so you don't drop & break it. With the window in either location, you can remove the regulator without moving the window, but it's definitely easier to remove the regulator with the window at the top, but easier to reinsert the bolts later with the window at the bottom. The SM has a bunch of extra steps, but Hugo's instructions are probably easiest, if you have ratchet wrenches and thin fingers for putting the 2 window bolts back in from the top. If you take out the regulator with the window in the middle, you'll have to connect it electrically and bring it to the top before doing Hugo's window repair inside the motor unit, then put it back in the middle (from the top, after preloading the spring at the top) to reinstall it.

Then all you do is remove the 2 bolts holding the glass to the regulator and 4 bolts securing the regulator. Circle the bolts holding the regulator so you can put them back in the same spot. 3 bolts holding the regulator motor only need to be loosened to get that out. (Of course disconnect the wiring connector to the regulator motor.)

Has anybody got the .pdf for Hugo's window fixit install?

My search turned up a couple of 404's on prime referencing the pdf on the Hugo Window Fixit install. I did it on my previous NSX & I thought I remembered a document as well, in addition to the video. I'm doing it now so if anyone has that pdf, please let me know.

www.nsxprime.com

Hope that helps.

Yes, thanks!

 

[natcc99]

An alternative to tape to hold the window is a piece of wood. The one I used was approx 8-10inches (20-25cm)
After removing the weather liner, I stuck the wood inside the door to brace the window after unscrewing the bolts that held it to the regulator.

 

[Old Guy]

Wild Turkey has it mostly covered.

This diagram is from the service manual. The red arrow marks the hole in the inner door skin that is used to access the front mounting bolt for the glass.

Clearly, the window regulator has to be powered up to allow you to lower the glass to access that bolt. When I did this, before I removed that bolt I ran a strip of duct tape along the full base of the glass as Wild T described With the bolt removed, I peeled the tape back and manually lifted the window into the raised position and then secured it there with the duct tape (lots of it because I was paranoid - tape cheap < glass expensive). With the window back in the full raised position the regulator comes out easily. As noted, if all you are doing is regulator maintenance then you do not need to remove the door glass.

The window regulator mechanism certainly contributes to poor window operation; but, the guides (tracks) that the window moves up and down in also contribute to window operation problems. Completely cleaning and re lubricating the guides requires removal from the door which is a fair amount of work and potential grief because even with marking the retaining bolts as described in the service manual you end up with a potential need to go through the glass adjustment process which is a real pain on a T roof. I had to remove the back guide on my car because I was replacing torn door sashes which allowed me to clean the back guide and lubricate it. I did not want to remove the front guide, so after re installing the rear guide I manually lowered the glass and ran solvent down the guide track to try and wash out the old grease. I then worked the glass up and down while applying more solvent to try and get the old grease out allowing the solvent to run out the bottom of the door cavity through the drains - this is not a very efficient process. After air drying, I worked Urea Grease in from the top and by reaching in the door cavity to apply grease to the guide (bloody hands from scratches on the door skin). I think @Honcho has experimented and may have advice on a better grease than Honda urea which used to be the go-to grease for this.

The glass assembly has sliders which fit into the window guides. As I recall they are nylon like. Try to check and make sure the sliders are not obviously damaged. If the sliders are damaged no amount of regulator work is going to make for smooth window operation.

I did all this without removing the glass from the door, in part because I didn't have a good place to put the glass where I knew it would be safe. I just used lots of tape to hold it in place. I definitely removed the rear guide without removing the glass. I suspect that if you re install the rear guide you could then remove the front guide for cleaning without taking out the glass. Whether you choose to try and clean and re lube the guides is your choice. Removing the guides to clean and lubricate them is a fair amount of extra work and potentially puts you on the track to adjusting the door glass. Based upon personal experience, adjusting the door glass on a T roof is not a satisfying experience. The service manual guide to glass adjustment is based upon fresh door gaskets. If your door gaskets have 20+ years of set in them the measurements in the SM may not be so relevant. After adjusting to the factory spec, I now have more wind noise from my windows.

 

[jsullyboy]

Wild Turkey has it mostly covered.

This diagram is from the service manual. The red arrow marks the hole in the inner door skin that is used to access the front mounting bolt for the glass.
View attachment 190383
Clearly, the window regulator has to be powered up to allow you to lower the glass to access that bolt. When I did this, before I removed that bolt I ran a strip of duct tape along the full base of the glass as Wild T described With the bolt removed, I peeled the tape back and manually lifted the window into the raised position and then secured it there with the duct tape (lots of it because I was paranoid - tape cheap < glass expensive). With the window back in the full raised position the regulator comes out easily. As noted, if all you are doing is regulator maintenance then you do not need to remove the door glass.

The window regulator mechanism certainly contributes to poor window operation; but, the guides (tracks) that the window moves up and down in also contribute to window operation problems. Completely cleaning and re lubricating the guides requires removal from the door which is a fair amount of work and potential grief because even with marking the retaining bolts as described in the service manual you end up with a potential need to go through the glass adjustment process which is a real pain on a T roof. I had to remove the back guide on my car because I was replacing torn door sashes which allowed me to clean the back guide and lubricate it. I did not want to remove the front guide, so after re installing the rear guide I manually lowered the glass and ran solvent down the guide track to try and wash out the old grease. I then worked the glass up and down while applying more solvent to try and get the old grease out allowing the solvent to run out the bottom of the door cavity through the drains - this is not a very efficient process. After air drying, I worked Urea Grease in from the top and by reaching in the door cavity to apply grease to the guide (bloody hands from scratches on the door skin). I think @Honcho has experimented and may have advice on a better grease than Honda urea which used to be the go-to grease for this.

The glass assembly has sliders which fit into the window guides. As I recall they are nylon like. Try to check and make sure the sliders are not obviously damaged. If the sliders are damaged no amount of regulator work is going to make for smooth window operation.

I did all this without removing the glass from the door, in part because I didn't have a good place to put the glass where I knew it would be safe. I just used lots of tape to hold it in place. I definitely removed the rear guide without removing the glass. I suspect that if you re install the rear guide you could then remove the front guide for cleaning without taking out the glass. Whether you choose to try and clean and re lube the guides is your choice. Removing the guides to clean and lubricate them is a fair amount of extra work and potentially puts you on the track to adjusting the door glass. Based upon personal experience, adjusting the door glass on a T roof is not a satisfying experience. The service manual guide to glass adjustment is based upon fresh door gaskets. If your door gaskets have 20+ years of set in them the measurements in the SM may not be so relevant. After adjusting to the factory spec, I now have more wind noise from my windows.

Thanks, one follow-up question to raise the window after removing the bolts you raised the window by pulling it up? You didn't run the motor to raise it. I cleaned the tracks in the door. Took some contortions but with patience I got there. My local Acura dealer gave me a tube of grease for the tracks. The window glides up and down smoothly. Going up is slightly slower than down but I think this is normal. I will remove the regulator and replace the plastic bushing on Saturday. Looking forward to working windows.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Old Guy]

Yes, just pull the glass up by hand and tape in position. Once the two bolts are removed that attach the regulator to the base of the glass the regulator can no longer safely move the glass up or down.

 

[Honcho]

Great advice here from Old Guy. Some of my observations:

• It's nearly impossible to clean the window guides without removing them from the car. The hardened moly grease resists even the most powerful solvents. You need to scrub and scrub in the T-channels. It's miserable. But, even a partially cleaned guide with fresh grease is better than nothing.
• Up is slower than down, even on a brand new regulator and guides. The glass is heavy and works in your favor when the window is going down.
• With old door seals, the FSM method should be a starting point and then the glass adjusted further inwards toward the rubber until there is enough contact to prevent leaks and wind noise. There is a lot of room to play with, so you should be able to get a good seal even on old rubber.
• I used Super-Lube PTFE silicone grease and the windows are still super smooth even 3 years later. Technically, the gray Honda Moly Grease is the OEM standard, but for some reason US Acura specified the green Urea grease. The cars shipped from the factory with the gray stuff, though. I could not find the moly grease for sale from any Honda dealer and word is it is discontinued. Time will tell, but so far I'm pleased with the PTFE grease and hope it will be easier to clean when my window guides need the re-grease service.
• Removing the glass requires removing the rear sash, which can be a royal pain. 90 degree long-nose pliers help somewhat. In my case, the glass was out of the doors, but this was because it was a refresh job on the whole car. I have used the clear tape method in other cases with good success.

 

[jsullyboy]

Great advice here from Old Guy. Some of my observations:

• It's nearly impossible to clean the window guides without removing them from the car. The hardened moly grease resists even the most powerful solvents. You need to scrub and scrub in the T-channels. It's miserable. But, even a partially cleaned guide with fresh grease is better than nothing.
• Up is slower than down, even on a brand new regulator and guides. The glass is heavy and works in your favor when the window is going down.
• With old door seals, the FSM method should be a starting point and then the glass adjusted further inwards toward the rubber until there is enough contact to prevent leaks and wind noise. There is a lot of room to play with, so you should be able to get a good seal even on old rubber.
• I used Super-Lube PTFE silicone grease and the windows are still super smooth even 3 years later. Technically, the gray Honda Moly Grease is the OEM standard, but for some reason US Acura specified the green Urea grease. The cars shipped from the factory with the gray stuff, though. I could not find the moly grease for sale from any Honda dealer and word is it is discontinued. Time will tell, but so far I'm pleased with the PTFE grease and hope it will be easier to clean when my window guides need the re-grease service.
• Removing the glass requires removing the rear sash, which can be a royal pain. 90 degree long-nose pliers help somewhat. In my case, the glass was out of the doors, but this was because it was a refresh job on the whole car. I have used the clear tape method in other cases with good success.

Thanks for the advice!

I think the driver side has been cleaned before. I managed to get the guides really clean. I could run a shop paper towel up and down both guides without any resistance or collecting any dirt after cleaning.

The passenger side may not be the same. I may have to remove the guides for that side.

 

[jsullyboy]

To hold the window I cut a few 1x3 poplar boards and routed a grove in the end to allow the glass to slot into. Then I secured the boards using existing holes in the door. This held the window up. I also painter taped it just to be paranoid.

I got the regulator out and with gorilla force managed to disconnect that cable and replace the plastic guide bushings and the plastic connector with the SOS replacements. This was a real pain. Probably nearly impossible to do alone. Since I had the SOS replacement connector I ended up cutting the plastic connector to make it easier to get the cable out.

I marked the location of the regulator bolts and got it back exact.

Cleaned and regreased the regulator track. I still hear a "creak" sound when the window gets to the last 1/2"-1/4".

I am thinking this is an adjustment issue. I originally thought the creak was being cause by the disintegrated bushings which absolutely needed to be replaced.

Unfortunately the creak is still there but, a little less than before.

I will attempt to adjust tomorrow.

 

[Old Guy]

Before attempting glass adjustment which is an invitation to frustration, did you check the operation of the regulator assembly on the bench by powering it up and down? You want to make sure that the noise is not originating from the regulator mechanism as it reaches its travel limit before you fiddle with the glass.

As you raise the glass and are getting very close to the very end of the window movement, the glass has two stoppers on it which run into stopper plates mounted on the inner door skin. The stopper plates are adjustable to establish the limit on upper movement of the glass.

When I was fiddling with my doors, I noticed that as the glass approached the full up position, I could see as I watched the top edge of the glass that it would rock slightly just before it came to a complete stop and it made a noise as it did this. Not sure that I would describe it as a creak; but, definitely a noise because it was causing the the glass to rock slightly in the guides. The back stopper was hitting the back stop plate first which stopped the back end of the glass from rising while the front end of the glass continued to rise for another 2-3mm or so. This started me on the glass adjustment track.

The stopper plate adjustment can be influenced by work on the window regulator because the regulator mounting can alter glass for-aft positioning and for-aft positioning can influence the adjustment of the glass stoppers. So, check the movement of the glass as it hits the full up position. If it is rocking then you may have a stopper adjustment issue; but, that stopper adjustment issue might actually be caused by a for-aft adjustment change. Rather than fiddle with the stopper adjustment first, I would first try loosening the four bolts for the regulator assembly which should allow you to move the glass position very slightly for-aft. Experiment and see if this fixes your glass rocking. If it doesn't, then you are potentially into the full glass height adjustment described on page 20-15 of the 1991 service manual.

Be aware that the glass adjustment distances described in this section of the service manual are all done with no door weather stripping in place so the process is more of a guide if you leave the weather strip in place. You definitely cannot use the B measurements. On a T roof you definitely do not want to go removing the weather stirp unless you are going through the agony of replacement. A coupe might be less painful.

If you do get into the glass for-aft / stopper adjustment, be aware of what is happening with the little rubber boots on the sashes at the front and back of the windows. The glass is supposed to be adjusted such that the rubber is just stretched a tiny bit. There is an NSX TSB 91-002 which describes the allowable stretch and the adjustment process. Unfortunately, you have to use YUMPU or the Internet Archive to find this TSB since it is no longer in the NSX Prime Library. I think I have the TSB saved someplace. Unfortunately I can't find 'someplace' right now so I can't attach the .pdf. Torn sash rubber boots are a problem that seems to affect all years of the NSX and seems to be hit and miss which makes me think it is an assembly line problem. When I purchased my 2000 in 2011 both rear sash boots were torn / disintegrated from the glass stretching them and I ordered new rear sashes ($$$$) to fix the problem. That along with the Hugo window regulator kit set me off on my door / window misadventures. When I installed my rear sashes I made sure that the glass was adjusted so that it barely touched the rubber boots on both the front and rear - no stretch for me!

 

[Old Guy]

• With old door seals, the FSM method should be a starting point and then the glass adjusted further inwards toward the rubber until there is enough contact to prevent leaks and wind noise. There is a lot of room to play with, so you should be able to get a good seal even on old rubber.

I am pretty much in agreement with all your points, particularly the fact that the FSM process for adjusting the glass is more of a guide than fact - Captain Barbossa's quote from The Pirates of the Caribbean applies to the FSM in this case

And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules.

The glass definitely needs to be adjusted to prevent water leaks. However, because of the way the glass contacts the weather strip this is influenced by both the vertical position adjustment of the glass and the in-out tilt of the glass.

As to wind noise reduction, I have fiddled and my only conclusion is that glass in-out contact with the weather strip is not the primary source of wind noise from the window glass area. I have fiddled with using heavy silicone grease on the gasket to insure a good seal between the glass and the gasket and it made no difference to wind noise. On my T roof, most of the wind noise appears to be originating from the very front of the window in the front sash area. The only thing that reduced the wind noise was fairing in the gap between the back of the A pillar and the front edge of the front door sash with butyl putty. My conclusion was that most of the noise appears to be generated by air spilling over the back edge of the A pillar and hitting that gap between the back of the A pillar and the sash. That is not something that can be altered by glass adjustment. I think the caution might be that if you attempt to reduce wind noise by further adjusting the glass inward to get greater contact with the door gasket you may increase wind noise because it affects the way that the air is spilling over the A pillar.

I have noticed a similar effect where the glass contacts the gasket at the B pillar on my T roof. As the glass is adjusted more inward to press harder on the gasket it creates a bigger step / discontinuity between the glass surface and the outside of the surface of the B pillar trim and air flowing over the glass and hitting that step seems to generate noise.

On a new car the, the cross sections in the service manual imply that the gaskets have enough bulge to kind of fill in those gaps. On an older car that bulge may be lost (even with regular application of Shin-Etsu grease) increasing wind noise and pressing the glass in harder is not going to improve things.

Window design on the NSX has to be one of its least satisfying design features.

 

[jsullyboy]

Thanks, I played around with it for several hours today. Its definitely a combination of the regulator position and the stoppers at the top of the door. I have reduced the sound but not completely eliminated it. It only makes it slightly now when it goes down. The speed is really good now even going up.

It is still not right though. I put the regulator back into the original spot because I marked it with a marker. But the stoppers are all the way down on one side and all the way up on the other. So the tilt of the regulator is part of the problem for sure.

I don't think the original position of the regulator was correct. So I am thinking i need to lower both stops and try to level the window with the regulator then setup the stops.

 

[Old Guy]

If you are in the doors mucking about with the windows, have a look at this thread

slow windows.....

its not necessarily the motor...... a while ago i fitted new window motor units both sides, as you do, and the passenger side remained slow and reluctant to lift.... as it was a nice day, and i had some enthusiasm to investigate, i set to, removing the door card and seal to get to the...

www.nsxcb.co.uk

It does illuminate the point that even if everything else is perfect the passenger side window will always be slower than the driver side window because of the lower voltage associated with the extra 'mile' of cable supplying the passenger regulator motor. Unless you are willing to rewire the car you can't fix that particular feature. However, the thread does identify that the passenger window has the switch contacts in the passenger side window switch and the passenger window switch in the driver's master switch in series. 4 contacts in total and as those contacts age and get dirty their resistance goes up contributing to low voltage at the passenger window regulator. That problem does not exist with the driver side window which is relay switched because of the auto down feature. With the doors apart, accessing the switches and opening them up for cleaning is fairly easy. My preference for conditioning the contacts would be De Oxit D100L; but, there are other options.

 

[jsullyboy]

Victory! The tracks are greased. Bushings replaced. The grease the Acura dealer gave me works very well. 3 nights of messing with the adjustments. I replaced the surrounds with the MITA trim because more than half the tabs were broken. I mimicked the factory felt on the trim. The Mita parts did not come with this. The window goes up and down cleanly no rubbing and almost at the same speed. The original regulator adjustment was way off. Then the rear stop and the rear track all needed adjustment.

Thanks for all the help. Now on to the passenger side. It barely works. Plus the switch is reversed! Only the master switch works and it’s reversed. Down is up and up is down. Hopefully there is an obvious wiring problem when I get in there.