Ok, so with all this crap about the window motors not being rebuildable on our cars i decided to try it out. These are small electrical motors and like all other vehicles they can be repaired. This is also obvious by the fact that they sell refurbished motors. SOMEBODY repairs them.

I went to a local hobby shop that sells parts for RC cars. I purchased a set of electric motor brushes at a huge 0.79$ pricetag for each.


The rebuild wasn't hard. The worst part about it was removing some sticky goo off the side of the of the case which houses some wires. Then the wires have to be unsoldered so the whole brush assembly can be pulled out the top.

I didn't take as many pictures as i should but here are a few. Pics of the old brushes, pics of the new brushes and the assembly. The old brushes were worn down to only about 3mm long which is small. I had to do a little sanding on the new brushes a small amount to make them move smoothly.

 

Very nice!

I knew it can be done, I'm really glad you've gotten it to work. I'm assuming your windows work perfectly now and the whole shebang?

This is really good news, especially now that we can all start doing this. I actually don't know if I have the skills to be able to this, since I don't know how to solder, but I may have to learn. I'll be trying this method in a few weeks when I have some time. If any of you other guys try this method, post your results as well!

 

Good job.. YOU must be into rc as well to think about that. That motor setup is the exact same as the can design for rc cars. Be nice to have a brushless setup but that a whole different idea

 

Brushless motors might not deliver the torque needed. Good work.

 

one would think this but i found out when i was there that the advancements in racing electric motors is insane. The new brushless motors are faster than the old school brush motors.

They produce TONS of torque. if we could modify an armature with a worm gear on it then it would be perfect.


yes, my motor works perfect now. It is a little louder than before, but i think this is because the new brushes aren't seated onto the armature fully yet. I've used it only a few times. I'm thinking after about a week it will break in and be perfect.

 

nice. my window just broke. i ordered a motor already, but it would be nice to know how to do this incase it breaks again. Nissan needs to do a better job with reliability. My Hondas dont act like this.

 

I hear that, we have a CRV with almost 70K miles, all 4 windows work just like the 1st day. Never had the issue with other cars with even more miles.
It's not rocket science.

Nice job, binder. I will likely try it myself the next time a motor gets sluggish. Just getting more interest in R/Cs too recently... I need the experience.

 

ya, my accord had 287k miles on it and the windows worked perfectly.


my old hobby gives back to me finally. lol

 

can i ask what steps you took to unsolder the wires, my brushes are completely worn down to the point that one of them is flush with the wall. it's useless to just clean it. i'm pretty sure i can find the brushes at the r/c hobby store but i just need to know exactly how to pull it out and remove the brushes. thanks!

 

the middle picture on the first post. You have to clean the protective coating out of that then desolder those wires from the posts. It takes a while and sucks but they have to be perfectly clean. Once the posts are clean you can pry the plastic part that contains the brushes out of the motor can. Those posts have to slide up through very small slits therefore they have to be perfectly clean with no solder on them.

Once you do that you'll see all the other areas you need to solder. Just cut the wires from the stock brushes and solder in the new brushes where the old ones were.

ask q's if you are still confused.

 

I just spent my night taking apart my girls driver side motor. Typically we replace this every summer with the onset of summer heat. Yesterday was the first good warm day, motor stopped working. We have the lifetime warranty through Advance Auto Parts. By the time I got home from work she had replaced it but wasn't able to reset it. Finally I just tore the whole thing down again and decided to take apart the motor.

I took apart the silver casing on the back of the motor. The reman was held on by basically weatherstrip sealant (nasty black sticky stuff) and three krimps. Once I took that off there is the back side of the motor, and then a gear mechansim that works with the reset switch. Turns out, the reset switch was was not being actuated because the metal spring was coming off it's hinge on one side. I fixed that with a little super glue on one side. put it all back together, worked great. Get up this morning, window is all the way down.

WTF? So i go take a look at it, the auto down works, the auto up doesn't. Every time I open the door it comes down but won't go up. So I figured out how to get it to stay up and close the door so she can get to work.

Call my buddy who is a nissan tech, evidently this is an issue with reman units. Going to buy an OEM new unit today for 182.

Hopefully with the nissan oem unit all i will have to do is replace the brushes in the motor as mentioned here.

I guess my reason for posting is I'm curious what they are doing when re-manufacturing that would screw up the circuitry in such a way? I'm an EE major and still learning, but if they are just replacing brushes why is it ****ing up everything else with the motors? poor soldering maybe?

 

that's weird. I've never heard of others complain about issues with refurb units. I know a few people have had issues with the window rolling down and they did the reset procedure again and it went away.

I know mine did this a couple times just before my motor went out but a reset procedure fixed it. I would try it a few more times before giving up on that refurb one. Won't hurt to at least try.

 

Thanks for the informative post. Can someone else who attempts this kind of break it down a bit more, I am clueless when it comes to this stuff (but if I am replacing the motor, what do I have to loose with ****ing around with it, lol).

 

what extra detail are you in need of? I thought I covered all the info enough for a person that has skill in soldering and electrical stuff could do this. It will be very tough for a person that is not skilled in soldering and desoldier small things in tight places.


I'm the only one so far that has replaced these brushes so i doubt anyone else can give you info on it.

 

Binder awesome job on this! Guys I fixed my passenger side window that was bad for like 1 1/2 year now and went ahead bought the brushes and voila!! it works. I highly recomend this to anyone that has mechanic/electronic skills.

 

thanks!

 

I also have a driver's door that goes out every 1 1/2 years. I also have the lifetime warranty from AutoZone. Glad too! I've become an expert in changing out the motor.

 

Damn....how the hell did I miss this thread?

I've been working on RC cars for years so this is right up my neighborhood.
Stoked that the brushes are the same, since I probably have a few in my RC toolbox.

Thanks binder!

 

i tried to make the name the ideal thing to search for when someone has window motor issues.

not too hard of a task and these will last a lot longer than the stock refurbs since they are performance brushes!

 

Thread title looks like a question so people might refer to Vo's larger thread, in regards to cleaning/ replacement motor. No one has really updated a solution by linking to this thread (Until recently.)

The replacement motors are just robbery so I don't even care if these brushes last me six months.

Thanks again!