Window Alignment
Car is back from the body shop and looks amazing. All the flaws are corrected and if you didn't know, you'd never know this wasn't a real S Zero. Critically, Mike was able to use a wide variety of auto body saws to notch the panel beam where the window trolley was contacting. He decided to leave the beam to continue to provide some (although reduced) support to the outer panel skin. You can see the notch below. Notice the dark red steel pipe above it- this is the door intrusion beam and is what protects you from a side impact. This tube was changed to an extruded heavy bar in the 1994 NSX. Now I can finally begin a proper driver side window glass alignment.
Notice the Super Lube silicone grease still on the regulator guide. This was a good sign that I chose the right grease for the windows. Imagine my surprise when the window barely made it up. We had a problem. After running my finger in the channel, instead of clear silicone grease, my finger was covered in a goo comprised of small metal filings. It seems all the metal cutting threw off aluminum shavings that got stuck in the grease. The door was full of it.
You can see on the red rag below that I spent about an hour cleaning the contaminated grease out of the window guides and regulator guide. I then re-lubed with more Super Lube. The good news is that cleaning is much easier because the silicone PTFE grease does not harden into a JB-weld like crust like the OEM stuff does. I was able to wipe it all out and put fresh grease in relatively trouble free. The front window guide had almost no metal but the rear guide was full of it.
Even with clean rails and fresh grease, the window was still very slow going up. I started the car and with 14.5V, it worked much better, but not great. I felt the motor housing and it was almost too hot to touch- that's the sign of a failing regulator. This is the risk of re-using 30-year old components. It was decision time. Do I keep the door apart, order a new regulator and wait to install? Or do I button it up and drive until it fails? I chose drive lol.
The window alignment process is tedious. First, you must use the regulator and rear window guide to get the glass to line up roughly fore<-->aft. What you're aiming for is the curvature of the glass to match the curvature of the A-pillar trim piece. Then, using the window stoppers, adjust until the glass contacts the rubber trim just under the A-pillar trim. Be careful- too high will contact the body and shatter the glass! Here's where my stoppers ended up.
Rear:
Front:
Once the window is lined up with the body, you adjust the in <--> out using the adjustment bolts until the glass contacts the rubber trim with a good seal all the way around. Finally, you adjust the sashes with the bolt to match the angle of the glass. The shape of the window glass is a 3D shape, so adjusting one area moves all the others. Eventually, you will get a good fitment.
