Sadlotus

Well.... I'm sure it's on here somewhere. I looked but couldn't find anything. I also looked all over the web as well.
My drivers side window was very slow. then slower, then stop.
In the end - nothing.

Went through the really good Clarks Garage window repair posting and that helped to confirm what the problem wasn't.
Looking through the big service file I see a new window motor was installed in 2014.
I would have been surprised if it had given up the ghost after only a couple of years - my Elan one is 40 years old.
Anyway, went through the tests and swapped switches, checked voltages etc.
I had a feeling it was motor/regulator problem because the interior light dimmed when the window switch was pressed, indicating to me that the motor wants to turn but can't.
Voltage was at the motor connection when requested.

Took the mechanism out as per instructions. Relatively straight-forward as long as you remember how all the door furniture goes back together, and tape the glass up so it doesn't fall into the door.
I marked the star drive and up/down cog with Tippex (unnecessary, but wanted to be sure)
Separated the motor and up/down arms (two 10mm and a phillips screw).
The mechanism was almost seized but after pushing up and down on it for a while, all back to normal after a good greasing. Watch out, the spring is quite strong - I pushed down on the bench and the cog spun several rotations.
The motor and gearbox still would not turn/spin/rotate when connected to a battery (touch the two metal tabs -pos and neg- casing is not earth -pos/neg swap for up or down).
So I undid the two TX star drive bolts holding the motor to the gearbox and gently pulled the two apart - I was worried the commutator and brushes might separate and be a right bugger to reassemble. There are small plastic plugs (pic3) on the motor housing which I thought might be for bits of string and bush reassembly - don't know if they are - but thankfully not needed. It looks like the motor has a collar holding the armature and commutator inside the casing.

Anyway, the long worm(?) gear that pulled out was very rusty and dry so I greased up the worm, connected the separated motor to battery and promptly sprayed grease around the shed and over me... motor is fine.
The gearbox side/part was seized and would not turn at all. I gently tightened the star gear/drive in a vice and pestered it until it started to turn then greased and oiled it until smooth.
Drained the oil out overnight and regreased in the morning.
I think the bearing (is there one?) or the hole between star drive and inside was jammed up so hoped the overnight soak and drain would seep into all the gaps (which it did - I think).
Reassembled and tested and did a little skip on the spot to congratulate myself.

Refitted the assembled regulator back into the door and tested up and down.
Yay! All good! Up/down/up/down/up/down on demand.
Now to put all the door furniture back on.

PLEASE NOTE: Sorry, I missed out a picture of the dismantled worm part and also I've assembled the motor casing upside down (pic2), it should be like pic 1 and I should have taken more pictures! - I found this out it was upside down when I put the regulator back into the door...Doh...

sweetskillsrk

I had the windows start to quit on me every now and then a few years ago and it turned out it was just the window switches. I sat in my car waiting for class to start and I took the buttons apart, cleaned them, put some dielectric grease in them, and whalah, brand new. That's one of the great things about older cars, if you can get it apart, you can rebuild it.

Thanks for the write up Sadlotus!