Most common C3 Corvette Window Issues and how to fix them

Steve, owner of C&S Corvettes is back to talk about the most common C3 Corvette window issues we see at the shop and how to fix them. Need to purchase a window regulator for a C3 Corvette? Get it on our website with free shipping in the USA.

Purchase the parts for this window fix. 

 Video Transcript: 

thanks for joining me I'm Steve from c&s corvettes in Sarasota Florida welcome to our Friday podcast we're going to address a couple of problems today that people have asked me about and we'll get into that in just a minute but for right now i just want to thank you for being here before we get started please take a moment of your time and like and if you haven't already subscribed please subscribe and you can click on the bell icon to be notified of future content as it comes out if you do that now that'd help us a lot now let's get on to addressing the problems people have asked us about here is our display door the one of the problems that that is brought up most often is the power window clunking as it goes up and down there's a number of different reasons for that and we're going to address a few of them here i can't do all of them right now but it's fairly time consuming but let's go over the most common we've got the door skin off of this so you can see the works what moves what doesn't move and you'll understand and make it easier to understand what the problems are first one most common one is the screws that hold your inside door pull handle in place when they get replaced people use whatever screw they can find and sometimes they're just way too long and as that screw goes through the handle through the inner door panel it comes out right in here by the by the regulator mechanism we've got this rigged up so we can we can make the window go up and down here today and what happens is as it goes up you can see the mechanism and we'll zoom in in a minute to show you the screw it it can hit that screw or that screw and as it passes the screw it goes clunk clunk it may not pass the screw if the screw is big enough which means it'll go up to there and stop so first and simplest thing to do take the screws out of the inner door handle now this is a 77 and back door 78 to 82 is different we'll address that one the next time but this is the most this is the the easiest to show you right now so those screws are one of the big problems i thought you might might enjoy seeing this this is some of the screws we have taken out of customers door handles to solve the very problems we're talking about we see everything from drywall screws to concrete screws tap cons the problem with these too is once they're put in those holes they enlarge the holes because they're much much too big around the right screws then don't fit so that has to be addressed before you put your door panel back together but this is stuff people have actually used and then wonder why their stuff doesn't work there's the answer okay here's your inner door handle um of course door panels removed the screws one goes in here one goes in down here from the bottom that hold that in place that's the screws we're talking about that are usually two or so often too long once you have put a screw in there that is too long and or too fat and you enlarge the hole when you put the right screws back in it here's what happens because the hole was enlarged that's why you have to fix the hole in the door first it can be done by kind of hammering it closed you can use a larger screw not as long of course larger in diameter and you can get by with that but in the future if you want to put the right stuff in it it won't work once you've enlarged it so you have to get into this piece of metal right here and flatten it out so that it will take the the correct size screw another of the problems is these little rollers that go inside these tracks with age they're plastic and they break they're they're little wheels once they don't turn properly anymore that can be your clunk so you have to make sure that the guides the rollers the wheels whatever you want to call them on the regulator are in good condition you want to make sure that these runs that the wheel rides in are free of dirt and debris they do have grease in them light grease but over the years they collect debris and junk just from being on a car you can clean that grease out you can put in a little bit of fresh grease it'll help a lot um some of the other issues are if the if the window stop is too low it allows the window to go to go down too far oops like instead of stopping there if it goes too far it'll go beyond this little trim piece and under it so when you go to go back up it catches the edge and it has to go good chunk to go that's another common problem okay here is a power window regulator this is a reproduction really good quality piece we use a lot of them here in the shop we sell a lot of them this is the root of many of the problems let me show you a few of the pieces components of this item and here here's what we've got this is the fan gear and you can see all the little teeth on it those teeth wear off your window doesn't go up and down or it skips really really common problem the little wheels are rollers that i was talking about earlier that's these guys they break they get to where they don't turn anymore they're a problem this unit comes ready to install if you decide to use one of these i'm i want to say this for everybody's safety now and there's a warning right here on it this bolt in place is very important it has to stay there until you install the motor because this big spring right here will cut your fingers off if you get them in the wrong place when the motor is in place it stops that spring from being allowing anything to rotate so please heed that bolt is very very important that one other item this little tab here this goes to when it's installed in the car on your door panel is an inspection panel there's a hole in it and it this bolt goes through that panel into here and it secures the bottom of this without it when the when the motor reaches its top extension or lower extension it torques which makes it do one of these one way or the other it changes the dynamics of it and it makes it it doesn't work well so if that these tabs are known for breaking off if you don't have it you need one of these the earlier cars didn't have that the reason they put it on is that there were a lot of complaints so if you have an earlier car you replace it with one of these you're going to solve that particular problem okay that's it for the for the regulator at least now you see what we're talking about well thanks for joining us today for our our video on on this particular problem thanks for watching all the way through to the end here please like subscribe and it'll help us a lot click the i the bell icon so you're notified again in the future again thanks for joining me