Wonderful world of LS window regulators

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snewo

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Hello all....first post, be gentle.

I'm the well seasoned owner of a 2000 LS8 and a new owner of a VERY low mileage 2004 LS8. ( History of the 2000: No less than 4 windows regulator replacements, one plug replacement on a rear window, paid for the gasket replacement to eliminate the oil in the coil wells, replaced all coils and plugs, 1 full set of brakes and rotors, and had to deal with the seat backs popping off and the air conditioning zones misbehaving)

So as I aquired the 2004 I suspected that I would have to change out a regulator or two during our hopefully long life together. Little did I know that 2 weeks into our new relationship I'd already be at that stage. I scanned the forum for a bit and I didn't find anything answering this question:

I'm sure the problem with the regulator design is with the plastic. Whether it's with the pulleys or with the clips themselves, the temperature cycling seems to eat them up or else it's just a basic poor design. I'm willing to pay extra money for a more robust design. Is anyone aware of a better designed regulator for these vehicles? Maybe one where the parts are metal. I have seen Motorcraft, Doorman, ACI, and they all seem to have the same plastic pieces in the same spot. During one of my repairs I accidently broke a plastic piece on my new regulator and I jury rigged a metal replacement out of parts from the broken unit. Surely the engineers at these companies are better than my "i'm a cheapskate repair" . Given my past history I'd be willing to pay double the price for a solidly designed regulator that would last twice as long.

Anyone have any experience that will help? In a pinch I'll take a basic crappy regulator with the longest warranty and I'll gamble.

P.S. Nice forum. I've scoured for tips many times. Thanks in advance for the help.
 
It's the clips. There's a vendor on eBay that sells gray plastic ones that seem to be stronger - at least for Gen1, I don't know about Gen2.
 
I certainly agree that the window regulators could be better, if your definition of better is longer life with no real concern for the cost. I don't think that just changing some of the plastic parts to metal would be the solution. You really don't want metal on metal for moving parts. If you don't keep them well lubed, they will grind each other down.

Personally, I think that some over react to failure rate. So far, I've had to replace one window regulator on each of my LSes. In each case, they lasted 8+ years. I know that eventually all of them will fail, but clearly (for my case) the average regulator life is going to be 10+ years, and that doesn't seem bad to me. Maybe I feel differently because I bought my LSes new, and it took eight years for a regulator to fail, instead of buying ten year old car and having one fail weeks after buying it.

I had a 94 Grand Marquis (also purchased new, yes I've been a sucker), and all four of it's regulators failed after three years (just outside of the warranty). I agree that was an unreasonable failure rate.
 
Not slamming the doors seems to help with longevity......
 
LS4me said:
Not slamming the doors seems to help with longevity......
Click to expand...

I've noticed that mine were making a lot of noise when closing the doors with the windows down. And, the plastic clips on both my front regulators broke when closing the doors with the windows down. I try to make sure my windows are up when closing my doors. you will notice less rattling of the glass.
 
I'll consider the clips once I see the state of everything in the door. I've had the metal wires dug into at least one of my green pulleys in the past so that one was shot no matter what.

As for the cause, I tend to put up all windows before leaving the car since I have this fear of it raining with my windows open. All of my broken clips tended to be in the extreme up or down position once it hit the stop. This most recent one is the first one that did not allow me to even attempt to put part of the window back up. Most previous ones were a break of only one side of the white plastic clip so I could hold the glass and get the window back up....which was very nice considering the previous fear. I was the guy driving around in the car with tape holding up the window. I wonder if a garage kept vehicle holds up better. My money is still on the thermal cycling of the plastic causing it to fail.
 
I agree with door slamming or actually the lack of it, but thats really with any car...


but I have been noticing a lot more noise from both of the front doors when I close them with the windows down. really sounds unhealthy... even if lightly shut, you can still hear sh!t rattling around in there. I've taken it apart a couple of times to make sure nothing was loose but couplent find any problems. really dont remember it sounding this bad a couple of years ago...
 
1LoudLS said:
I agree with door slamming or actually the lack of it, but thats really with any car...


but I have been noticing a lot more noise from both of the front doors when I close them with the windows down. really sounds unhealthy... even if lightly shut, you can still hear sh!t rattling around in there. I've taken it apart a couple of times to make sure nothing was loose but couplent find any problems. really dont remember it sounding this bad a couple of years ago...
Click to expand...

Look at where the plastic clips clip to the cable. That's where mine were broken. You'll know as the clip should securely attach to the cable, in two places, top and bottom.
 
it even made/makes the noise after replacing the drivers door regulator with a brand new one... also noticed the wifes escape does the same thing(nowhere near as loud), maybe its just a piss poor engineering thing from ford... wouldn;t be the first time
 
The regulator, at least on the rear glass, is a single bar rod unit. I haven't seen a front one yet, but the rear units look like the aftermarket conversion units they sell for street rods. They come for both flat glass and curved glass and are universal in design so they should allow for variances in glass curvature. They have to attract customers with a quality product in an industry where word of mouth can make you or break you, so they are likely better built than the ones the OEMs put on their cars as the OEMs worry more about cost per unit than they do about customers wanting to buy their regulators for projects. Might be something to look into.
 
Took a quick look, looks like there are some two slide "Bowden" style regulators on the aftermarket that might work. They also have single slide units that use a flat bar to support the glass all the way across the bottom, then connect to the regulator in the middle. It's a lot of trouble to convert when as Joe says these things last several years at a time, but if someone really wanted to do it there are options.
 
So I finally got around to taking apart the drivers door on my 2004 and I found a new window regulator failure for me....wire pull through. It seems that the wire somehow was wrapped around the section where the motor drives the gear and that must have pulled it. So I did my normal regulator circuit....Pep Boys, Advance, AutoZone and they are all the same Dorman brand unit. Strange thing was that they didn't include the motor. All of my 2000 Gen I replacements had the motor included. Was this a change someone between those years? I was hoping to be able to avoid the indexing steps if I could (since I never did them). Also the price seems about the same but this time the motors are excluded. Is this the aftermarket folks smelling blood in the water with the LS regulators? Since no one had one in stock I ended up ordering one online.
 
Actually, that's what most failed regulators that I have seen/replaced looked like. Once something breaks, the tension is released from the cord(s) and if someone keeps trying the window switch, the cord(s) get tangled up.
The gen II has a "smart motor" that has the auto up and down features built in. The smart motor is more expensive, but it very rarely needs to be replaced. Indexing is an annoying extra step, but it is not difficult.
I used a Dorman on one of mine, since it was an emergency and it was in stock at a local store. We'll see how long it lasts.
 
There's always rock auto and amazon if you want the motorcraft unit. Got mine from Amazon with free prime shipping. 2 days later sitting on my door. I still need to go back in and adjust it and do the indexing but eh, I'm lazy. :)
 
That's what I did. Amazon with prime shipping. I'm willing to pay Brick and mortar stores money for instant gratification, but if they have to order it too, I'll do it myself and save the money.
 
I did my drivers front regulator replacement successfully today. I ended up purchasing the Dorman unit from Amazon. I ran into one unexpected issue...the regulator wasn't threaded to accept the Torx headed bolt that held on the motor from my original unit. That was mildly annoying, but I was able to find hardware in my supplies to get around it. If anyone is going to try this themselves, be prepared for this item.

The other thing I did seemed to get around me needing to index my motor. When I replace these units, I always have the window taped into the fully up position. Before I placed the motor into the regulator, I did the auto up procedure until the motor stopped. Once everything was bolted into place it all seemed to work. Was I just lucky or was that a good thing for others to try?

-Snewo
 
snewo said:
... Before I placed the motor into the regulator, I did the auto up procedure until the motor stopped. Once everything was bolted into place it all seemed to work. Was I just lucky or was that a good thing for others to try?

-Snewo
Click to expand...

That was basically the indexing procedure.
 
My bad, I thought the instructions were to bolt it on...install....unbolt and then index motor. Having gone through it again I realize that doesn't really make sense. Thanks for the help, BTW.

Now it's time to fix window #2 in my new vehicle addition (the 2004 LS). For my next trick I'll be evaluating why the driver's rear window doesn't want to work. If I remember correctly from my 2000 LS the rear windows are simple compared to the fronts. Maybe I'll try that one next weekend.
 
snewo said:
I did my drivers front regulator replacement successfully today. I ended up purchasing the Dorman unit from Amazon. I ran into one unexpected issue...the regulator wasn't threaded to accept the Torx headed bolt that held on the motor from my original unit. That was mildly annoying, but I was able to find hardware in my supplies to get around it. If anyone is going to try this themselves, be prepared for this item.
-Snewo
Click to expand...

Odd..... The motor bolted right into the Dorman regulator I bought from RockAuto with the old fasteners.
 
I suppose it's possible that Dorman forgot to tap it on the production line. It seemed like it would have been tap-able to the proper thread if I have a tap and die set....which I don't.
 
Mine only broke the clip that holds the glass. Found one in a focus at the junkyard and been regulator failure free ever since.
 
Those clips can be repaired with a soldering iron. That plastic is a material that can be welded back together and made better than new with some clever strenghtening points. When my two clips broke I resoldered them with some old broken clip plastic. Better than new. Never broke again,,,,,,,,,,but another part gave out before the clips did, bought a Dorman, it had much beefier clips. No problems so far.
 
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