Front window regulator failures
 

I had front passenger door apart today installing new mirror and thought I should share my regulator experiences. This is also a continuation of following topic
http://www.bonnevilleclub.com/forum/...af84248ec8ec64
In which Archon wrote:
About a year and a half ago (before I discovered BC) my front driver’s side regulator had a failure in which the cable pulled through the plastic. On the front regulator, the cable passes through the sled continuously. There is an anchor mid-length on the cable which attaches to the sled. I made my repair back then by melting some aluminum and casting a big slug around the anchor. I then dremel cut the slug and trimmed away broken plastic parts so that the slug would fit neatly into the slot in the metal part of the sled. I pop riveted a piece of metal over the slug to hold it in place to perform a similar function as the “clip” shown in the techinfo topic http://www.bonnevilleclub.com/forum/...dea915fb56b661

From the pictures shown in the techinfo topic, it looks like the rear regulator has two cable anchors attached to the sled and one has a spring. The front regulator has only one anchor and no spring. In theory, I can see the general procedure used in the techinfo topic being modified for use in the front. However, since there is only one cable anchor and the required “bracket” length would be about same as the rear one, a spacer would have to be made to keep the anchor from sliding back & forth within the bracket.

The plastic cable retaining tabs on my passenger side regulator sled didn’t look very healthy today (cracked & bent :( ). I tried to get pictures but it was too hard to see what’s going on without completely removing regulator. Maybe when it does finally go I can document the repair.

BTW – I have not had a rear regulator failure yet.

Thank you Roadrunner. That description helps a lot to describe what is happening. As the front only has one cable, it sounds as if there is likely less pressures applied to the plastic which in turn makes them last longer. As the cars age, it's likely we'll be seeing more of these failures. It is suprising that the front went on your car before the rear.