A few weeks ago, I attempted to fix the window regulator on my wife’s 1999 SAAB 9-5 wagon. After taking the door paneling apart and removing the bad part, I was able to keep the window up, but couldn’t get the new part to stay attached. After a trip to the local SAAB dealership, the parts guy confirmed that I had the right part. However, the fear of breaking things myself kept the door in pieces until today.
If you are not familiar with the inside mechanism of a power window, you might visit www.thesaabsite.com and look for window regulator. The electric motor attaches to a scissor-like mechanism called the window regulator. At the end of each scissor blade is a small, green, plastic wheel that connects to a slide at the bottom of the window. As the motor pushes the other end of the regulator, the wheels slide back and forth pushing the window to the correct position. It’s an interesting piece of engineering.
So … what was the problem? The problem was that the original green wheel had snapped in pieces and had become disconnected from the end of the regulator’s “scissor blade.” The end of the blade has a short stubby piece of metal that is supposed to snap into the center of the green wheel. On my first attempt, the green wheel would not snap into place and stay put. It would hold for a while but then pop out of place as soon as the window was rolled up a few inches. That’s not a good thing to happen when the door paneling has already been reinstalled.
Today, I decided to try it again. The first step was to grease up the slide at the bottom of the window. Once the slide was greased it only took a bit of pressure to pop the green wheel into the slide. And after carefully moving the power window switch to an appropriate position, I popped the window regulator into the green wheel. Easy enough but as soon as I tried to roll up the window, the regulator immediately popped out of the wheel. Hmmm … it must need more pressure to pop the thing in completely. But to get a pair of Channel Locks into position, the window had to be lowered to the bottom opening of the door. A quick squeeze with the pliers popped it into place for good. Hurrah!
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If you’d like step by step instructions, watch this video by Eric the Car Guy: