R17 Electric Windows

G

Geopug2

Member
VIP Paid Subscriber
Fellow Frogger
Joined
Dec 3, 2012
Messages
144
Location
Wollongong
I have been working to improve the operation of my Renault R17 electric windows. A plastic and metal sprocket had split and was broken in the regulator of the passenger's side. I had the sprocket 3D printed in plastic, fitted it, silicone sprayed the window channel, adjusted the channel and the window now works fine.

However the driver's side window is a different story. It had a brass sprocket which I used as the model for the 3d printed item for the passenger's regulator. The window goes down, and climbs up, shuddering as it goes and stops about two and a half centimetres (an inch) from the top. I have adjusted the plastic fitting shaped like a seven at door latch end of the glass so there is the regulation 5mm between it and the runners for the regulator at the bottom of the glass. I have also tried to adjust the window channels from the nuts/screws at the bottom of the door, but so far to no avail.

Has anyone had a similar problem and if so, how did you fix it? How do you tell ( apart from the window working fine) that you have the channels in the correct position?

Thanks
Geopug
 
Okay, no answers so I'll give it a try.

Firstly I would suggest you need to make sure your motors are in perfect condition otherwise they will struggle because they are probably underpowered. Good wiring (capable of delivering the current needed) is also crucial. Dodgy connectors, switches, etc will quickly sap power from the motor. I would suggest running power directly through a pair of relays instead of the switches would make a big difference. Let the switches control only the low current through the relay coils.

The position of the window is important but I do not think you can get it that wrong given the way the channels are set up. Just make sure the window doesn't "cock" in the channels, that is usually why they shudder (all else being peachy keen). Check if you have any for/aft play at the bottom of the window. If you "help" the window up by hand, you should be able to feel the window rocking for/aft. Check the channels don't have any high spots or similar and you should be okay.

The scissor lifts can also be worn out at hinge points especially, have a look. The sliders in the bottom of the window rail also need attention. They have a pair of plastic rollers and if these get stuck and don't roll any more will wear flat and cause shuddering as they fight their way along the bottom rail.

I think that pretty much covers it.

I have two of these cars and both have perfectly functional windows but they are a bit slow. I plan to install relays at some point and give the motors a good service. The rest of the mechanism seems in good shape but probably needs a regrease. Am also toying with the idea of using some Honda motors I have from a 90s Civic because these used to lift a rather heavy window with no problem at all at the same gearing ratio. More modern, should be way better. There are probably better options these days, I would check Prius motors, those lift a really heavy window too and are even more recent.
 
Thanks for your response Schlitzaugen.

The electric motors are a bit tired but seem okay. (The left /passenger window works fine without issues, although slows a bit as it gets to the top).
I think the problem is with the window channels, rails or scissor movement.
I have taken the glass, the regulator, and motor out again, as well as the the channel and the quarter glass and the rear window channel near the door knob. The channel near the door knob has some muck in it which could be part of the problem.
I also think there are some clips missing which the window channels connect to for improved adjustment in the door.
I will look for some replacements over the next few days.
There is some movement fore and aft when the window is in (about 2mm depending on how much I adjust the plastic sideways seven thing that attaches to the bottom of the window and guides it in the channel at the door knob end of the door.) but I don't think that is enough to cause the shuddering and eventual stopping of the window before it gets to the top.
Will let you know how I go.
Thanks for the suggestion about the Honda motors.
 
I would actually suggest you check out the Prius motors (newer, more abundant, cheaper - maybe? ) or (probably better idea) look at some Corolla (early 2000s) motors, those are a very basic (dumb) motor, no computers, etc. and should be plentiful around (probably highest sales volume).

I happen to have Honda motors because I have had a Honda I took them off from. Not any other reason.

A little bit of wobble can mean enough play for the window to cock in the rails and with an underpowered motor it doesn't take much.

The railing inside the door has a whole bunch of adjustment points where you have to add washers, slide the rails for and aft and up and down and so on. You can also adjust the angle of tilt sideways and I think it is independently adjusted front and back so you can end up with the front rail misaligned with the rear one, which would definitely cause binding somewhere. The windows on my 17G were like that when I bought the car and the giveaway was that they did not touch the top door seal with the predictable consequence that I had rain coming in. A bit of a faff to set everything right.
 
An update on the electric windows on my Renault R17. After problems with both, the windows are now working properly and I thought the fixes may help others should they encounter similar problems..

(1) Passengers side window - worked sometimes then stopped. The problem was tracked down to a broken gear sprocket in the regulator. As they are nigh on impossible to buy, I had one 3d printed and so far, it is working fine. I have attached a picture showing the brass driver's door regulator gear sprocket; (it was used as the model for the printed gear) in the middle is the plastic and metal one which was broken from the passenger door with the blacked 3d printed version below. I have also added a picture of the 3d printed sprocket in the gear. The cost was $100 for the printed sprocket and $15 for an extra as a spare. So far the window is working fine.

(2) The driver's window was another issue. The window would go down okay, but on the way up would shudder and cock in the rails until it stopped. It stopped often at various places on the way up but always stopped about an inch from the top and refused to go further unless pulled upwards by hand. After much mucking about, my son noticed some movement under load in the small external sprocket on the regulator and suspected the bearing had gone. The sprockets are permanently fixed so we drilled out the axle and removed the sprocket. (see pic) The sprocket and almost non existent old bearing is also pictured; We contacted BSC and ordered two similar bearings (slightly bigger diameter but and a fraction less deep). The new bearing was 14mm diameter with a 7mm centre so we drilled the sprocket out to 14mm and inserted the new bearing. (see pic). I obtained some 7m bolts from Supercheap for $8.00 and cut one down and also cut the nut down to fit in the regulator as an axle for the bearing. After putting the regulator and motor back together it now works perfectly. The two bearings (one for a spare) I bought from BSC cost $1.10 each, plus $2.00 transport from Melbourne plus GST. The 14mm drill bit was the dearest part of the exercise ($45.00). Overall, apart from the weeks mucking about trying to track the problem, a great result. Hopefully this info may be useful to others.
 

Attachments

  • 3gears.JPG
    3gears.JPG
    536 KB · Views: 96
  • 3dgear.JPG
    3dgear.JPG
    461.3 KB · Views: 98
  • oldbearing.JPG
    oldbearing.JPG
    330.4 KB · Views: 102
  • spocketdrill.JPG
    spocketdrill.JPG
    264.3 KB · Views: 93
  • regulator.JPG
    regulator.JPG
    341.5 KB · Views: 91
  • door.JPG
    door.JPG
    239.3 KB · Views: 99
Ouch. About 150 bucks all up. At least you keep the tools and spare gear.

Next time I will offer cutting the gears out of brass for less than that.

What was the diameter of the bore before you drilled the gear?

I would have used a new bronze bushing given the gears will see very low speeds but a high load. Bushings can be found around, bearing places would have them or someone like these people:


Anyhoo. All's well that ends well.
 
Thanks for the offer of cutting. I wasn't sure where to go to get a new brass gear cut. I will remember that for next time.

From memory, I think the inner diameter of the regulator sprocket was around 12.8mm. It was more than 12 and less than 13. There was a smaller bearing I could have bought than the 14mm one, however it was only 4mm wide/deep. The sprocket bore was around 6mm wide/deep so the 14mm x 5mm was a better fit and should last longer.
 
A machine shop would be able to do it but it would probably be more expensive than the 3D print because they would probably charge you for buying the cutter. If you bought the cutter (or the machine shop had it already) the price would probably drop dramatically provided they actually wanted to do it. There may be too little profit in it for them though so in good old ozzie capitalism tradition they would probably turn you away.

This is the kind of stuff that lead me to buy my own machines and do away with all the crap I can do away with.

I don't think I have the cutter either (I have some but don't know what pitch/module this gear is) but I would buy it (I will definitely have to buy it once my own gears crack) and make a bunch of gears. Once you set up to cut one gear you can cut a hundred of them in no time at all (relatively speaking). Being brass, it is pretty quick and easy. I have cut steel gears, that's a bit slower but still much better than begging some machine shop to take an interest.

My preferred material however would be 7075 T5 Aluminium which is durable, even easier to cut and I would hazard a guess cheaper than brass/bronze. I have cut quite a few gears in 7075 and they are way ahead of commercially available brass/bronze (if they are available at all).
 
I put two of these in to replace the plastic gears that had broken.

www.ebay.com.au

MASERATI BORA MERAK MISTRAL SEBRING QUATTROPORTE 1 MEXICO DUCELLIER WINDOW GEAR | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for MASERATI BORA MERAK MISTRAL SEBRING QUATTROPORTE 1 MEXICO DUCELLIER WINDOW GEAR at the best online prices at eBay!
www.ebay.com.au

My drivers window actually started playing up the other day. Turns out it was the new FAE switches. Swapped over to a old Fuego (i think, maybe R20) switch and the window worked again and was 1.5x faster!
 
Hehe! There you go! Somebody beat me to it.

At least now I know these gears fit expensive cars!

I have also seen people on the interwebs casting unobtainium gears using all sorts of materials including superglue mixed with baking soda. Wonder if it would work with JB weld or similar.
 
Last edited:
I had a gutfull of window issues with my A310 which is similar to R17.
Sourced a pair of more modern '95 Laguna units and grafted them in.
Needs a judicious amount of metalwork, and they sort of mesh with the
gear crescent sorta okay.
I used fronts which are diecast and I expect stronger , rears are plastic.
 
As it happens my 17TL also had power windows and they worked perfectly when I pulled the car apart and sent it to R17 heaven so I have a perfectly useable spare set. Switches are another story but still worked.
 
Geopug2 said:
I have been working to improve the operation of my Renault R17 electric windows. A plastic and metal sprocket had split and was broken in the regulator of the passenger's side. I had the sprocket 3D printed in plastic, fitted it, silicone sprayed the window channel, adjusted the channel and the window now works fine.

However the driver's side window is a different story. It had a brass sprocket which I used as the model for the 3d printed item for the passenger's regulator. The window goes down, and climbs up, shuddering as it goes and stops about two and a half centimetres (an inch) from the top. I have adjusted the plastic fitting shaped like a seven at door latch end of the glass so there is the regulation 5mm between it and the runners for the regulator at the bottom of the glass. I have also tried to adjust the window channels from the nuts/screws at the bottom of the door, but so far to no avail.

Has anyone had a similar problem and if so, how did you fix it? How do you tell ( apart from the window working fine) that you have the channels in the correct position?

Thanks
Geopug
Click to expand...

schlitzaugen said:
As it happens my 17TL also had power windows and they worked perfectly when I pulled the car apart and sent it to R17 heaven so I have a perfectly useable spare set. Switches are another story but still worked.
Click to expand...
 
I'm also having trouble with the gear on my Renault 17. Would be interested in spare set if you are selling them.
 
Geopug2 said:
An update on the electric windows on my Renault R17. After problems with both, the windows are now working properly and I thought the fixes may help others should they encounter similar problems..

(1) Passengers side window - worked sometimes then stopped. The problem was tracked down to a broken gear sprocket in the regulator. As they are nigh on impossible to buy, I had one 3d printed and so far, it is working fine. I have attached a picture showing the brass driver's door regulator gear sprocket; (it was used as the model for the printed gear) in the middle is the plastic and metal one which was broken from the passenger door with the blacked 3d printed version below. I have also added a picture of the 3d printed sprocket in the gear. The cost was $100 for the printed sprocket and $15 for an extra as a spare. So far the window is working fine.

(2) The driver's window was another issue. The window would go down okay, but on the way up would shudder and cock in the rails until it stopped. It stopped often at various places on the way up but always stopped about an inch from the top and refused to go further unless pulled upwards by hand. After much mucking about, my son noticed some movement under load in the small external sprocket on the regulator and suspected the bearing had gone. The sprockets are permanently fixed so we drilled out the axle and removed the sprocket. (see pic) The sprocket and almost non existent old bearing is also pictured; We contacted BSC and ordered two similar bearings (slightly bigger diameter but and a fraction less deep). The new bearing was 14mm diameter with a 7mm centre so we drilled the sprocket out to 14mm and inserted the new bearing. (see pic). I obtained some 7m bolts from Supercheap for $8.00 and cut one down and also cut the nut down to fit in the regulator as an axle for the bearing. After putting the regulator and motor back together it now works perfectly. The two bearings (one for a spare) I bought from BSC cost $1.10 each, plus $2.00 transport from Melbourne plus GST. The 14mm drill bit was the dearest part of the exercise ($45.00). Overall, apart from the weeks mucking about trying to track the problem, a great result. Hopefully this info may be useful to others.
Click to expand...
Hi, any chance you would have a copy of the 3D file? Both of mine are too damaged to copy.
 
Hi Nathan, no I don't want to sell the spares, sorry. I intend to use them as model to copy and machine various parts for future use in hope they will be better than the originals.
 
Jensen said:
I put two of these in to replace the plastic gears that had broken.

www.ebay.com.au

MASERATI BORA MERAK MISTRAL SEBRING QUATTROPORTE 1 MEXICO DUCELLIER WINDOW GEAR | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for MASERATI BORA MERAK MISTRAL SEBRING QUATTROPORTE 1 MEXICO DUCELLIER WINDOW GEAR at the best online prices at eBay!
www.ebay.com.au

My drivers window actually started playing up the other day. Turns out it was the new FAE switches. Swapped over to a old Fuego (i think, maybe R20) switch and the window worked again and was 1.5x faster!
Click to expand...
Did the Maserati gear work ok? I was thinking of ordering 2 but it gets quite expensive with the postage from US so wanted to make sure they work before ordering.
 
Schlitzy is right and, it is a problem I have found with a number of Renault of this time. DRY JOINTS !!! 6 weeks ago I sorted some electrical problems on a late R12. When I ran an outside wire to the latches it worked perfect. Now I have just fixed a R17G wiper system. And the same R17 has very bad windows. Bridge with an outside wire and they work perfect.

Ray
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top