Left Rear Quarter Window 1970 Deville

[colorado4x4]

Hello,
Looking to tackle an initial project on my newly acquired 1970 Deville.  The driver side rear quarter window, when you try to put window down, it falls off of the track and falls down into the cavity.  The window can then be gripped by getting your hand down there and attaching some duct tape and pull it back up and then simultaneously operating the "up" switch it will go "back into" the channel or track
I have the fisher body manual and the service manual, but thought I would  post on here to see if there are initial things to do or look for, likely parts needed, best practice experiences.

[chrisntam]

I can't help specifically, but I can help "generally".

You'll have to take the interior panel off, but the rear seatback and lower seat cushion will need to be removed first.  Be careful when taking the interior trim panel off, the top (curved) part or it's attaching points are made of some sort of fiberglass and it / they will break if not careful.  I think it is held on by both screws and "keepers" in that the panel has to be lifted up to be free of them (towards the top).

Once the panel is off, open the inspection area (remove plate cover) and have a look inside.  IIRC, the window has two guides (rollers) that go into a track (or two).  My guess is one of those rollers is broken.  You may also see what's going on once you're able to put an eye in there.

Hopefully, others will chime in on what to do while you're in there (cleaning, re-greasing, etc) and or they'll have better direction on what to do.  Windows and their mechanisms have always befuddled me.

Also IIRC, the Fisher Body Manual isn't of too much help.  That manual seems to be written to an audience that already knows how to service those vehicles...

[76eldo]

Be very careful.
The regulator uses a lot of spring tension so if you are going to take things apart be careful not to take out any bolts that will release the spring.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

I too am sure that the guide rollers will have broken.

They are simply nylon, or some other plastic, and I have made my own replacements.

Sorry I don't have any better pictures, but I cleaned it up further to replicate the original, and with a special tool I made, trimmed out the inner hole so that it fitted over the original ball and popped into place.

These rollers are available at places like Hydro-e-lectric

Bruce.

[Rich S]

I agree with the comments already made. My '71 Eldorado Convertible driver's side rear quarter window started to go down "crooked" last summer, first dislodging the rubber strip, and eventually splitting the rubber piece on the front of the window. I had to obtain replacement rollers from Hydro-E-Lectric as Bruce recommended and also they had the rubber strip for the leading edge of the window. (My mechanic installed them.)

[76eldo]

I bought my 70 convert with the left rear window off the track and laying down in the quarter.

Since it was such a nice clean original car I took out the back seat and the side trim panel and took it to an old fashioned auto glass shop in my area.

The owner and his son took the whole mechanism out of the quarter as well as the glass and had to reattach it to the regulator. There was something that they did to put it all back together that required a large vise on their workbench and both of them prying the spring back to reattach something.

I’m a decent mechanic and parts changer. I can remove stuff to get it rebuilt and put it back on but I don’t rebuild components. I also don’t get in over my head on something that can be dangerous.

If it’s just rollers that’s pretty simple but if it’s more than that I’d recommend opening this up and make “waiting” appointment at a local auto glass shop for the repair and ask them if they are able to work on your particular car.  Some may not want to touch it and most will want you to drop it off for the day. I never do that with my cars.

Good luck and I hope you get it resolved.

[colorado4x4]

Finally got around to opening up the driver side rear quarter window panel access.
(1st picture)Immediately apparent that horizontal roller had cracked and disconnected from the roller pin and roller channel.
(2nd picture) Passenger side rear quarter window, with roller pin and roller correctly inside the roller channel
(3rd picture) Cracked roller bushing
(4th,5th, 6th picture)  The roller that I need to find somewhere, any ideas where to get this roller? (I had bought one of the big main rollers from Hydro electric, in anticipation that one of the main rollers was broken, but now realize that is not the case)

Rough dimensions seem to be:
.4 inches, 10.19mm thick
.706 inches, 11.94mm wide (at widest point)
.435 inches, 11.06mm wide (at narrow point)
.300 inches, 8.15mm inside diameter


(7th picture) There she is, before digging into the window mechanism

[colorado4x4]

Here is a front view (circled), and, using a mirror, a side view (arrow) of the rear quarter window regulator roller pin.  the plastic roller is missing since is broken. (see above post for pictures of the plastic roller.)
Question:  The roller pin appears to be pressed into the regulator arm, it doesn't look riveted, so, how to remove this pin?  Press it out, drill it out?  Or could a new plastic roller somehow be popped/squeezed onto it without removing the pin?

Also, while I am in here what are some best practices to clean off the old grease and apply new grease, what type of grease?

[colorado4x4]

An update for what I had to do to fix my driver side rear quarter window regulator arm roller on my 1970 Deville Convertible
I really did not want to go through the process of removing the window regulator assembly from the car to install the new pin and nylon roller

First off, bought a set of four rollers and pins off of ebay to get my initial parts in hand....."4pcs 64-68 Chevelle and 62-67 Chevy II window guide and rollers" (picture below)
These would be a quick fix if the window regulator assembly was out of the car and, with a chisel, vice and hammer and with a certain youtube video as a step by step guide

Instead I opted to try and die some threads onto the short skinny end of the pin, used a M5 .8 die and put threads on it, but there wasn't enough thread sticking out of the regulator arm to get a nut on there securely, plus, no good way to tighten it down once the nut was was on the pin, as the pin/roller needs to be in the guide track as part of assembly.

Got intuitive and bought numerous parts at Home Depot and Ace to come up with other solutions.  Someone with a mini-metal lathe, using the dimension of the pin I bought on Ebay could create a longer pin, die it out with threads and be good to go.  (going to put a mini-metal lathe on my tool wishlist)

I bought numerous parts, nuts bolts, washers, clevis pins, at Home Depot and Ace and once they were all in front of me, came up with a solution.

[colorado4x4]

Took one of the clevis pins, an Everbilt 1/4x1inch clevis pin and put a thread on it with an M5 .8 Die. 
Ran the threads about 3/4's the way down the pin. With a spacer from Ace that match the dimension of the fat part of the pin I bought off Ebay, slid that onto the clevis pin (had to run a drill bit through the spacer to slightly enlarge the spacer hole)

Assemble the Clevis pin, a washer, the spacer, and the nylon roller, slid it into the regulator track, then ran the window control until the assemble roller was in line with the hole on the regulator.
Pushed them together and slid a lock washer and a M5 .8 nuts onto the post.  This is where the hole on the end of the clevis pin came in handy.
Slid a paper clip into the clevis pin hole, which gave me method to hold the roller assembly while I tightened the first nut with a wrench, pulled the paper clip out, slid on the second nut,  tightened the second nut with a wrench while holding the first nut with an ignition wrench. (ignition wrenches are skinny enough to grip the first nut while having room enough to tighten the second nut with a normal wrench)

Success !!

Before all this, I had cleaned off all the old grease, which had the look and consistency of peanut butter, and applied lithium grease to all the slide channels
The window goes up and down quick and great !

The first picture below, the top row shows the parts I put together to complete the task, the second row are the pin and roller from Ebay, the third row is the original pin and roller.
To back up a moment, I removed the original pin using a dremel tool with a cutoff wheel to gingerly grind down the rivet end of the pin flush to the regulator arm and then use vice grips to twist it out of the regulator arm.

The second and third pictures below are the new pin and roller in place, along with lots of lithium grease !

Accomplished the task with out taking the window assembly out of the car.

I can come up with a parts list of the items I actually used if someone needs to go through this task on their car.

[Cltmte]

I know this thread is quite old but I just completed the repair on the rear passenger window on my 1970 Deville convertible. I used Nick's guidelines to complete the repair, but selected slightly different parts. 

I used:
5mm clevis pin
The rollers from eBay as Nick described
Spacer/bearing uxcell 6mm bore x 8mm OD x 10mm length
Cut threads with 6mm 1.0 die
Matching nuts

Cut off and drilled out the existing rivet to allow the pin to fit.

Installed the fix. Lubricated roller and channels and buttoned it all back up. Works fine.  The biggest slow down was getting up the courage to make the first cut.  Btw my problem was a broken roller as described above

Now I just need to clean and re-lubricate the channels on the remaining windows.  Thanks for the guide Nick