"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
10/19/2018 at 16:05 • Filed to: Smart Roadster, Windows
3
17|
"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
10/19/2018 at 16:05 • Filed to: Smart Roadster, Windows | 3
| 17 |
This one you really, really don’t want.
One of the three cables that operate the driver’s door window on my car broke. Two choices then present themselves: you buy a secondhand mechanism (assuming you don’t want to spend several hundred on a new one) or you buy a repair kit which has new cables and a new pulley. Either way you have to take the outer door skin off (for the repair kit) or the whole lot off (new mechanism). I’m cheap and lazy, I went for the repair kit. I ended up with two repair kits because the pulley on the first one was the mirror image of the existing one. We wound up using it, but that’s another story.
Anyway, after half a day struggling I gave up on it and brought the car to the mechanic almost next door who asked me to take out the entire mechanism and he’d put it up on a table so as to have room to work. That meant drilling out five rivets, another job you don’t want.
It took four of us to put two cables on a pulley with sufficient tension. It’s at about this point we realised why Smart don’t sell
a repair kit.
Next, he riveted the mechanism in again so we had this:
Yes, everything had to come off the door. Today everything had to go back on. Door card (two parts, the outer one is a nightmare), door skin (nightmare, especially when you realise it’s almost on and you’ve forgotten to put the glass in), glass (easyish), mirror (fairly easy until you realise that it has to come off again because the window seal has to go under it), window seal (looks easy until you realise that you have to push it much harder to get it to seat properly than you thought).
In summary: if you’re ever asked to help repairing a window winding mechanism on a Smart Roadster, say “no!
” firmly and loudly. Com
e to thin
k of it, you’re probably best advised to say “no!
” whatever it is.
lone_liberal
> Cé hé sin
10/19/2018 at 16:18 |
|
I’d say “ no” for any car when it comes to window mechanisms . My stumpy little sausage fingers don’t do well inside doors. When the power window motor failed in my Windstar I took one look at what it would require to fix it and instead of fixing the motor I went to a junkyard and bought an entire door.
RacinBob
> Cé hé sin
10/19/2018 at 16:19 |
|
Heck, it sounds like if window winder broken, car should be totaled........
Do they sell prepaint ed doors as a window wiper repair part?
TysMagic
> Cé hé sin
10/19/2018 at 16:23 |
|
That is some fine engineering if I do say so myself
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Cé hé sin
> TysMagic
10/19/2018 at 16:30 |
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Everything shiny that
you can see is aluminium and the panels are plastic so the entire door weighs nothing.
Wouldn’t like to try the side intrusion bar though...
BvdV - The Dutch Engineer
> Cé hé sin
10/19/2018 at 16:35 |
|
The things I hear about the design of the Roadster keep surpising me... I still sort of want one though
AuthiCooper1300
> Cé hé sin
10/19/2018 at 16:44 |
|
Mark my words: the door handle cable (driver
side, for obvious reasons)
w
i
l
l
snap at a
most inconvenient time.
B
e
p
r
e
p
a
r
e
d
f
o
r
l
o
t
s
o
f
f
u
n
t
h
e
n
!
P
i
t
y
y
o
u
d
i
d
n
o
t
t
a
k
e
a
d
v
a
n
t
a
g
e
o
f
h
a
v
i
n
g
e
v
e
r
y
t
h
i
n
g
o
u
t
t
o
r
e
p
l
a
c
e
t
h
a
t
c
a
b
l
e
t
o
o
.
In the ForTwo models (450) you also have to dismantle half the door but to do that, if I remember correctly, you have t o r e m o v e the r e l e v a n t front wing t o o . And the f u n n y f l o p p y aerial which juts out of the rear view mirror base ( d r i v e r s i d e , r e m e m b e r ) will n o t want to be undone, which means all kinds of unnatural contortions in order to keep dismantling stuff.
G
o
o
d
l
u
c
k
w
i
t
h
t
h
a
t
h
a
n
d
l
e
.
L
o
n
g
m
a
y
i
t
l
a
s
t
b
e
f
o
r
e
t
h
e
i
n
e
v
i
t
a
b
l
e
a
g
g
r
a
v
a
t
i
o
n
.
|
Cé hé sin
> AuthiCooper1300
10/19/2018 at 16:55 |
|
One of the previous owners has already been at the handle! The inner door skin is attached by one-way clips which had already been levered off. As I understand it the usual issue is that the cable falls out of the handle.
I had to loosen the front wing too. Another nightmare of a job.
|
Cé hé sin
> AuthiCooper1300
10/19/2018 at 16:55 |
|
One of the previous owners has already been at the handle! The inner door skin is attached by one-way clips which had already been levered off. As I understand it the usual issue is that the cable falls out of the handle.
I had to loosen the front wing too. Another nightmare of a job.
|
Cé hé sin
> BvdV - The Dutch Engineer
10/19/2018 at 16:59 |
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Every expense was spared i
n its design
I’m afraid. Also, nothing is designed to come apart so the door skin is held on by clips which don’t all survive removal.
|
AuthiCooper1300
> Cé hé sin
10/19/2018 at 17:02 |
|
Oh w e r e n ’ t you l u c k y !
I suppose it will be the passenger side next... but by then you may have already sold it on.
Longtime Lurker
> Cé hé sin
10/19/2018 at 22:14 |
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I think it’d be kinda fun to drive around with the doors bare like that.
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Cé hé sin
> Longtime Lurker
10/20/2018 at 05:10 |
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Did it, twice, up and down the road. It’s an........
.interesting experience on a cold day.
pip bip - choose Corrour
> Cé hé sin
10/20/2018 at 05:53 |
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you can have that job to yourself.
:P
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> Cé hé sin
10/28/2018 at 15:58 |
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Come to think of it, you’re probably best advised to say “no!” whatever it is.
Even if it’s, “Hey, ya’ wanna buy a Smart (anything)?
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Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> AuthiCooper1300
10/28/2018 at 16:00 |
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I never had the slightest inclination to buy a Smart. Now, I have a growing
declination
...
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Cé hé sin
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
10/28/2018 at 16:00 |
|
Well, I was thinking along the lines of “do you want to help fixing anything on a Smart”.
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Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> Cé hé sin
10/28/2018 at 16:01 |
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I realized that. But still...