Electric Window Motor Reconditioning Guide

[Khurrum]

Right everyone after searching for ages seems like to me noone has actually reconditioned, repaired, fixed the electric window motors on the mini cooper,

I've seen hundreds of posts on the motors jamming and people buying new motors, but why not make the most of the existing motors after all the armature only needs cleaning

If you are capable of removing the winder mechanism, with a bit of patience I am sure you can recondition the motor, so here goes best of luck

First step is to remove the winder mechanism here I will quote Clake's guide as I did not see the need to repeat the work somebody has put the effort into.

I would only only follow this guide upto removing the winder mechanism from the door if you are planning to recondition the old motor.

Clarke's MINI Cooper Window Regulator and motor page

As there are no pictures some nice guy has give a couple of pages out of his haynes manual and these are below. You will find referring to these useful when reading Clarke's guide




Right heres where the fun begins

Detach the motor from the mechanism by removing the torx screw in the picture below



Once you have removed the mechanism from the door there are now 2 ways to go about it,

1) The easy way is to leave the motor in the gearing mechanism this way you do not have the risk of the cable getting tangles up and this is the approach I have taken, the only draw back is that when you remove the armature you will have to "screw" it out as it will not be free on the other end. This is by far the method I recommend, as i found it easier and quicker and this is the way I will continue the guide.

2) The other way is to remove the motor from the gearing mechanism as decribed in Clarkes guide as if you are going to replace the motor, this way you will be able to work with the motor more freely, but have the risk of tangling up the cable. Only use this method if you are more confident and are plannig to do more work as if replacing the bushes.

Either way from above you will now have access to the motor and the gearing mechanism
If you are following the 2nd method from above you will remove the motor at this stage,
See below



Now this is where you remove the motor casing, by removing the 4 bolts holding the metal casing below.



Important note, mark which way the casing goes in, if it is out by 180 degree your motor will function the opposite way !

Now remove the metal casing by pulling it of, remember there is a bearing on the end so pull it off perpendicular. It will be hard to pull off at the permanent magnets are attracted to the armature.





(If you are following step 2 then the rotor may come out with the casing and will look like this



simply pull out the rotor from the metal casing.)

Removing the armature, firstly dont panic the brushes will pop out, I will explain how to put these back together in a bit. Again here is what you do depending on which method you are following from above:

1)If the motor is still connected to the gearing ratio you will have to rotate the rotor to remove it this will inscrew the worm gear

2) If you have removed the motor from the gearing mechanism and the armature has not come out with the metal housing the rotor should just pull straight out.




Once the rotor is out, this is your fault, the armature is dirty hence poor contact with the brushes,(this motor was not as bad as the other one but i serviced it anyway)



I used a bit of 1600 wet and dry paper to clean the armature (it was dry !), remember patience, best way to do it i think is to hold the paper and turn the rotor that way you will be taking of a even amount. Once you finish it will look like this



Refitting the rotor into the housing.

Although I intially thought that we have to hold the brushes on each side with a screwdriver and refit the rotor. I have found that on the opposite end to where the brushes make contact with the rotor there is a white cap. A slight nip with a screwdriver removes the cap and the spring can be removed.

So move the brushes back, slip in the rotor, replace the spring and clip the cap back in place.



Now simply replace the metal housing on the motor (THE RIGHT WAY ROUND) and Voila you have saved the cost of a new motor.

I did find it is possible to change the brushes, but you would have to resize the new brushes and solder them in. May be part II of the guide but for now its working fine.

Hope you find this useful and any questions feel free to email me khurrumsattar@hotmail.com

[sjrainsford]

Nice write up!

I vote this should be a sticky forum entry!

[miniredcooper]

Nice one - excellent instruction and information. Thanks.

[arunmax]

Cheers mate your write up has just saved me having to buy a new motor.

My glass was stuck in the closed position which made it almost impossible to remove the two fixing bolts holding the glass, the only way i found to undo these was to take the outer and inner trim off the top of the door then with a screwdriver and hammer, bash the serrated teeth round which eventually loosened them. There is no room to remove these nuts so i then had to remove the four fixing bolts and collapse the window mechanism to give myself some more room.

[NeuroBeaker]

Aha!

I've just started experiencing this problem myself. Read about the punching the door trick to try to get the window working again - but alas, there seems to be more of Richie Cunningham than The Fonz about me.

I'll have to see how brave I'm feeling in the future - I'm a terrible DIYer and am prone to inadvertently starting electrical fires.

Great and comprehensive write-up though, thanks very much!

All the best,
Andrew.

[Muttzcuttz]

Just had the same issue with my Window (Driver).
I've managed to remove the motor with the window stuck in the up position by removing the screws via the speaker hole Didnt have to touch the window trim or anything.

Wouldnt have been able to know what to look out for without this guide so thankyou

[DeathtollWRX]

Is there anyone in the Los Angeles area that I can pay to do this for me?

email me at findaldeguer@gmail.com

[uabobm]

Hi Mr K,

Great post on re-building motor. I have had this issue for quite a while and when it gets Hot outside, the windows will not work. Fortunately they were up when It happened. The Left side then stopped altogether. So, I decided to attempt the re-build. A friend and I started at 10 am, and were it not for us breaking one of the brushes, we would have been done by noon. Long story short, after searching for quite some time for new brushes, my buddy thought of the hobby shop. They had brushes that were almost the right size, so with a little Mc Givering, we made it fit and put the motor back together. Viola! Fixed. ALMOST. It was winter, so the temps were cool. Now comes summer, and the first 100+ day, and BAM....Both windows stop working again.. Now, being a somewhat smart guy, I figure the rebuilt motor should be good for another 30,000 Miles or so, and should not have quit. But it did right along with the other one. I am stumped. This sounds like a job for Click and Clack. But I thought maybe you might have some insight for me as to another place I might look for Heat related Stoppage. Maybe one of the connectors is the issue... I am baffled and very frustrated. I certainly don't want to take it to the dealer as this will cost me thousands of dollars. HELP

Thanks, Bob M
Vacaville, Ca

[PK5]

whats the time spell to change or restore? any specific tools required?

[PK5]

you will be the most popular person for putting this up for others to use, thank you from all in mini 2

[uabobm]

Quote: Originally Posted by PK5 (original)

whats the time spell to change or restore? any specific tools required?

if you don't have any snags, it will take about 2 hours....and Have a friend help you. I had to buy a pry tool and borrowed a metric set.

Also, if you can't get the window down from the full up position, then you will need to take the bolts off the motor and disengage it to move the window down a bit to get to the sprocket things to get the glass out. (The hardest part)

The rest is straight forward. Pay attention to the details and it will go fine. Caution... the brushes are delicate and break easily. TAKE THOSE WHITE CLIPS OFF BEFORE YOU PUT THE ARMATURE BACK IN ! Then replace the brushes and clips. You can buy brushes cheap at a good Hobby shop, but they are not exact. However, you can cut them to size with a hack saw, and wrap them a little tape to fit in the hole. A little solderind will have to be done if you need to replace a brush.

All in all, not a tough job. But, I still think the problem is the Regulator system. It can be purchased for about 140 bucks. That is what I will replace next. The rubber mallet hit on the door panel just under the speaker seems to break it free to work again too. But you will look silly doing this all the time.

Have fun, Bob

[Khurrum]

Hi Bob,

hmm i feel that your motors are posessed

Well there are two possibilities here

The first being is that the heat is affecting the windows moving freely in the channels, the friction between the glass and the channel may be putting excessive load on the motors and this may be causing them to stop. The friction off the rubber may be heat related....

Also what is tha angle like on where the window seals against the rubber strip ? if the angle is too sharp then there would be excessive load on the motor.

You could use some silicon spray to lubricate the channels

Moving onwards the other thing i can think off is the material of the brushes. When you say the motors have stopped working have you opened them up ?? if the armature is dark and burning away it may be that the brushes are arcing too much and they are forming deposits on the armature.

It may be an idea to get some brushes from a starter motor or something, because from what I can remember on my radio control car the motor used to throw sparks out like there was no tomorrow.

If all else fails I'd say its time for a new motor, I ended up going down that route when I ran out of time for doing the other side on my sisters mini,

I paid about 50£ for a pattern motor and complete winder assembly where Mini quoted me 60£ for the motor and 100£ for the assembly

Good luck

Let me know how you get along.....

(I really must figure our how to get this site to email me when someone asks a question)

[m3evo]

TRIED AND TESTED.

AFTER READING MANY, MANY DIFFERENT IDEAS WITH REGARDS TO THE WINDOW NOT WORKING.

OPEN THE DOOR AND HIT THE DOOR PANEL JUST ABOVE THE LARGE SPEAKER, AND HEY PRESTO IT WORKS NOW.

LET ME KNOW HOW YOU GET ON


GAZ

[Benno]

Hi
I had the window problem, hit the door panel above the speaker adn it works again

Cool

just got a door lock problem now, door closing with fob but not openning

cheers

Benno

[Afo]

hi all,

I've so far gone without registering to the forum and have fixed a few problems by reading the info on here, but I had to today

a friend's Mini One ('04) has had the problem on the passenger side window, so today I attempted this fix. I did try banging the door a few times before I proceeded to pull it apart, no luck there. I cleaned the armature which I'd say was a little worse than that in the above picture...however, this has not sorted the problem. All the symptoms are the same as many have mentioned both in this forum and others, but removing the carbon build-up has not made a difference.

After reassembling everything but it still not working, and after having seen the innards of the motor, I listened to it carefully and I think I can hear a slight turning of the cogs inside of the motor (I'm thinking the ones where the rotor screws into!?) but can't be sure.

Anyway, my question before going out to buy parts, is do you think it's still likely to be the motor? Or is it more likely to be the Regulator. Considering they are both not particularly cheap, I thought posting the question here would be worthwhile...

Incidentally, having followed the guide I had it all out and back in just over an hour. I was intrigued by what Muttzcuttz said about using the hole where the speaker goes...and after a bit of a fiddly job I had the motor out in situ fairly quickly. The worst bit was getting the springs back in (how did you do it Muttzcuttz?!)