my girlfriend just got a 87 FC with power windows. the driver side window refuses to move up or down so we opened her up to take a look. amazingly the window motor had broken itself off from both its mounts on the door, taking a largish chunk of the door with it (2 square inches). additionally the metal rod with threads that moves through the motor had broken out of the metal hose piping, so the pipe is now snapped in half.

now we tried to remount it by fabbing some mounts for it (from aluminum we got at home depot). that actually seemed like it might work except the rod with threads (no clue what this thing is called) kept punching out of that metal hose thing its supposed to sit in. so instead of moving the window up it kind of coils up inside the door... sigh.

any hints (short of welding) of how to secure this thing? any help is much appreciated... maybe a metal clamp or something (but how to keep it from slipping out? damn... ergh!

btw my guess is that the window rails suffered from chronic lack of lube. that put extra stress on the window motor mountings and they eventually gave. ouch. grease your window rails!

 

It's going to take some clever fabrication to make a good fix.
- or -
I saw a whole red drivers side door on e-Bay yesterday for $50.