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View Full Version : Seeking advice on my e36 coupe power window failure.



Kannackas
07-14-2019, 12:25 PM
Hi! I recently bought my first e36 and have enjoyed it a lot. It's a stroked m52b28 with m54 rotating assembly and M3 headers, built by previous owner and so far it's driving smooth and all the important stuff is new or refurbished but as the car drove 300.000km's before the rebuild many small bits needs addressing. I have worked on a bunch of small stuff and for a few months had the car perfect in every way.

Considering the milage I guess things will continue to wear down that has to be adressed, but since all the big stuff are solid I look forward to learning by fixing the small issues as they come! The first issue is what I hope someone before me has run into so I can narrow down my searches for the issue and on how to deal with it.

The car is a 97' 328i coupe. It started a while back to make a loud noise when ever coming into full up position, so when I rolled it up while driving it made the grinding noise and when I pressed the up button again it made the loud grinding noise. Every time I got out and closed the door it made the noise when popping up which was awkward.

Then it got stuck completely in the up position, and didn't pop down when opening. At least that made it better to drive around with because I didn't have to hear the noise.

A couple days of more driving and the window started to go down as when opening the door when I drove over bumps and then on the next bump it popped back up with a grinding noise. This started to happen all the time when driving around with smal periods of the window stuck completely then to start with the issues again after awhile.

Now I have parked it and removed the panel, the window is for the moment stuck in fully up position and when hitting the buttons up and down the motor is clicking but nothing moves.

There are too many weird things going on with the window so I don't really know what to look for as I am not an experienced mechanic and not good at diagnostics, I can work my way around a car when I know what to do and what the problem is so I wonder if all the symptoms above have the same cause? Helpful for any advice, I have searched around for common faults in other threads but nothing seems to sound like what could be the cause here?

thenjnick
07-14-2019, 02:01 PM
Check the microswitches. They’re little black buttons behind the door latch. Press them in and see what happens. You may be able to move the window when the switches are depressed. Im thinking maybe these are bad (maybe loose and worn out) causing them to activate when you hit a good size bump.


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Kannackas
07-15-2019, 02:33 PM
Thank's for your reply, and tip. I don't believe that's it though because this morning when I was taking my other car to work I opened the door on the e36 and the window went down and then poped up closing the door(with that same awkward squeeky noise). I took the window down when I got back home later and doing that while observing the regulator frame or what it's called on the way down it looked like the plastic clips slid smoothly through the frame and it was freshly greased. But when I tried to get it up again it had a small hick up after a few centimeters and then stopped completely midway and made the noise again.

I want to add that I'm not someone who just goes on here asking for free help with diagnosis to take it to a mechanic and tell him exactly what to do and save some money, I usually been doing the opposite with previous cars; paying a mechanic for his time to diagnose and then went home reading up on how to do it myself. I intend to do all the work myself.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzkrWT2bCg0&frags=pl%2Cwn)
Edit: Apparently made the whole post a link to the video on the issue.

thenjnick
07-15-2019, 07:27 PM
Sounds like a gear getting mashed. It looks like there are nuts/bolts holding the regulator on, someone may have had it off before. I would take the regulator out, remove the motor, open it up and have a look at the gears inside. They’re plastic and pretty easy to break after so many years.


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Kannackas
07-16-2019, 12:41 AM
Okay, I'll remove it all during the weekend and investigate the gears. Thank's.