# Repaired Dennis's window regulator pulley



## PowerDubs (Jul 22, 2001)

Flew out to visit Dennis for a couple days. He told me his passenger window was making a funny noise. 

So me being me, I said let's tear it apart and see what's what. 

We found one of the pulley was broken.












It looks like the 'normal' repair would require replacing the entire assembly as everything is riveted together.

Of course that probably costs several hundred dollars and more time. Instead we went to Ace Hardware, bought a new pulley, a bolt and nut.













All fixed, works great. Cheap fix.


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

Nice! I bet it'll last longer than the original, too. How difficult was it to get the door panel off without breaking anything?


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## PowerDubs (Jul 22, 2001)

Piece of cake. I had already had mine off before, so I knew where the screws are hidden.


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

One less thing to worry about when my warranty expires. They paid for the passenger side, but I'm sure at some point the driver's side will fail.


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## PowerDubs (Jul 22, 2001)

I shudder to think what the dealer would charge to do this repair.

Pulley was $5.69, bolt & nut were .38 cents combined.

Edit- fixed stupid incorrect autocorrect.


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## howzit-eksee (Mar 24, 2005)

Hey Josh,

So glad you have a Phaeton, you are always tinkering and helping others figure stuff out.
Im in a Phaeton now too, so all your work, and others is much appreciated!

Chris (Paximus) pointed me to this thread.

My passenger side window is making noises too, I might go see QBN this weekend and see if we need to do the same fix.

Ill take pics too, and see if I can add anything to the pool.


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

I seem to recall that the dealer charged about $900 for mine.


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## cowboy_ (May 16, 2011)

Good job there, nice, simple and effective.


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## Bindaham (Apr 4, 2014)

PowerDubs said:


> Pulley was $5.69, bolt & nut were .38 cents combined.


Hi Josh,

Terrific simple solution to an annoying problem. I'm facing this issue with my front passenger window. I wonder where you got your pulley from, there are a million of them out there and a lot must be of cheap material. 

Size info would be appreciated.

Regards,

Salah


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## PowerDubs (Jul 22, 2001)

I don't know the size off the top of my head. We just eyeballed it with the new one. The new one has an actual metal bearing in the middle to allow it to spin. It will last forever.


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## twgin (Apr 25, 2012)

I did this repair and the best pulley I found was at Home Depot in with the screen door repair gear. Has a metal bearing and diameter was within and eighth of an inch of the broken one. So far working well, but the window up and down travel is just a hair off. It goes up and seals (i.e. no water gets in during a wash) but lots of wind noise from the window. It goes down but should go about another quarter of an inch farther down.

Anyone know how to adjust the travel ?

Terry


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## ilanna1 (Oct 7, 2009)

*window pulley*

you wrote me this about my 04 phaeton, when i said the back 2 windows maybe going out: ""The window motors are NOT on their way out. They don't fail. It is a stupid little plastic wheel that fails. You can buy a complete regulator for $200ish, or DIY hardware store replace the wheel for <$5. --> http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...gulator-pulley
Buy a used CD player on Ebay and swap it (cheap and easy)..."""

I read the thread abt how u did it and pictures. 
1) Question: how can we know if it's just the pulley plastic thing or more expensive motor/regulator (are motor and regulator the same thing)? We're selling it w/out back windows fixed, i'll go find the guy the plastic pieces and email him the thread, but don't want to sorta screw him over if it's more than that. 

2) Also u said an alternative is we could buy a complete regulator (i guess that includes the plastic thing, too?) for $200ish, is that a DIY cost? 

3) can any old body replace the CD player, or do they need to be special master phaeton god's to do it w/out screwing it up?


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## Bindaham (Apr 4, 2014)

I finally got some Home Depot door rollers for my window regulators, they're $5.59 each and look very sturdy. Hopefully will get to fixing the rollers in few days.


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## 53PL-50AAA-VW611BAN (Feb 10, 2015)

Bindaham said:


> I finally got some Home Depot door rollers for my window regulators, they're $5.59 each and look very sturdy. Hopefully will get to fixing the rollers in few days.


Salah,

Are these the ones you bought? 

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Prime-Line-1-1-4-in-Steel-Patio-Door-Rollers-2-Pack-D-1796/100574233

-Eric


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## Bindaham (Apr 4, 2014)

Hello Eric,

They're almost the same but mine came with less hardware.

This is the the one I ordered.

http://m.homedepot.com/p/Prime-Line...H=RV-_-rv_mobileweb_rr-2-_-NA-_-202598192-_-N

Regards,


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## 53PL-50AAA-VW611BAN (Feb 10, 2015)

Thanks Salah,

I am going to buy some for my Phaeton.

Eric


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## trogdor1138 (Apr 13, 2015)

*Sometimes it really is broken...*

I tore into my rear passenger side door last night expecting to have the window fixed and working before bed. Unfortunately, this is what I found instead:










As you can see, the cable coming from the motor housing has snapped and is frayed and there's no longer anything running over the upper left pulley.

So, it looks like I'm buying the whole panel assembly. The only other chance would be a purported regulator repair kit, like this one on eBay. It looks to be exactly what I need; just the cables. Has anyone used one of these? It's about 1/5 the cost of buying the whole assembly, but I'm unfortunately not in the mood to experiment.


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## Passivist (Dec 19, 2015)

I'm trying to do this repair on both rear window of my Phaeton but I hit a snag:banghead::banghead::banghead:. How were you able to remove the part that held the broken pulley in place to put the new pulley in there? Did you cut it down and drilled a hole in there for the new pulley or where you able to take out the whole piece and place the new pulley in its place? Please let me know. I've removed everything and ready to finish the job but i'm not sure how to go about it since the part won't easily come off. Thank you for the help!


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## PowerDubs (Jul 22, 2001)

Cut it off and drilled a hole.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## twgin (Apr 25, 2012)

I had one of these break a while back and got a Home Depot pulley to repair. After the repair I get wind noise on that window (front passenger) leading me to believe that the window is not raising quite far enough to seat in the door frame, or perhaps that the very slightly different diameter Home Depot pulley is causing one side of the window to travel more/less than the other, "cocking" the window. Is there any adjustment in this whole mechanism ? Near the upper right pulley is a twist able fitting on the cable, anyone know what this does ?

Terry


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## johnnyjiang (Feb 24, 2014)

What is the size of that broken pulley? 1-1/4" OD?


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

The third regulator went on mine this week. Home Depot have a 1.5 inch pulley that is very close to the size of the originals. However, I also figured out why it doesn't work properly when you replace it. 

To replace the pulley, we drilled out the old one, used a small bit first, then reamed it out with a drill bit roughly the same size as the inner rivet (you can see the line), drilled down to the bracket and it fell off.
Pulley we used was this one.

The problem with the repair is the tensioner. The tensioner is a weird design, no doubt they have their reasons, but when the pulley breaks, the tension is released, and the tensioner pops all the way out, making the wire too tight to fit the pulleys. It's also designed to be one-way, you can't push it back in. The solution was to pull it all the way out, then use a dremmel to remove a small section from the bottom, roughly corresponding with how much slack you need to get the wire around the last pulley. The shorter the tensioner, the less tension there is. We took the spring off to do the cutting, pull the tensioner out then remove the spring from the wire just like taking a key off a keyring, replace it the same way.

I tested the regulator out of the car and it worked fine, so I've now fitted it and run it up and down several times and so far it's working. In retrospect, I should have done the other three pulleys before cutting the tensioner, since they're slightly smaller and will introduce too much slack into the system (I suspect, maybe not depending on how the motor works, if another one breaks I'll replace them and see if the motor takes up the slack).


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## ravenflies (Oct 31, 2013)

Did one of my rear regulators today, replaced the not so good plastic pulleys with printed ones with place for bearings. Here are some notes regarding the tensioner.

As when a pulley has collapsed or the wire has escaped from it as on mine. Tensioner pops all the way out.










Compress the spring with cable ties, as many as it takes.










Get the plastic ”ratchet” out, use the small hole and some useful tool.










Get the plastic ”ratchet” as far back as possible. It takes some releasing help on some of the four tounges.










Get it as long as you think is needed.










Adjust this from this original position to the innermost position.










And then get it that last bit to allow getting the pulleys and wire in place.










When all the things are in place turn the adjuster to its original position.










Then release the cable ties and the tensioner will extract as much as needed. Done!









Lennart



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## Jorgsphaeton (Sep 8, 2009)

Do you have a contruction drawing for the printer?

Jorg

Verstuurd vanaf mijn HTC One M9 met Tapatalk


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

I have no idea how you got that grommet thing past the four tongues. We tried for hours. It's evidently not designed to come out once it's in.


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## ravenflies (Oct 31, 2013)

Jorgsphaeton said:


> Do you have a contruction drawing for the printer?
> 
> Jorg
> 
> Verstuurd vanaf mijn HTC One M9 met Tapatalk


Hi Jorg,
I, or should I say my 3D printing colleague have one but it needs some improvements from my latest findings to get it good. I will do some thinking and test on the next door.

Lennart


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## ravenflies (Oct 31, 2013)

invisiblewave said:


> I have no idea how you got that grommet thing past the four tongues. We tried for hours. It's evidently not designed to come out once it's in.











Well it is not a straight forward instruction like do 1, 2, 3 and so on and then it is done. It is more like wiggling and trying but after the spring is secured it does not take more than a few minutes to get it done.

Lennart


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

Yes, that's what we tried, we tied the spring out of the way and tried to push it out through the hole. We even tried heat to soften up the plastic tabs, still couldn't get the thing out!


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