Tiz's Minis

Window smashed, lock broken, stereo gone, bugger!

This actually happened quite a while ago, and cost me a lost weekend sorting the mess out. Basically someone had decided that the car stereo was a desirable item and my car was inline for some damage. They must of put a screwdriver in the lock and when that didn't work decided to smash the window.

Step 1: Find a replacement window
Fortunately, a friend of had an old mini that was waiting to go to the scrapyard so the window on this car was mine. Not too bad a job removing the old window, except for the masses of sticky gloop that is used around the winder mechanism. It's a bit like very sticky bluetack. The rails that the window sits on were very rusty, hopefully mine would be in better condition.

Step 2: Inspect the damage
On to my mini. I managed to get most of the glass out of the bottom of the door with a screwdriver. Whilst I had the door cards off, I had a look at the genral condition of the door. It's beginning to rust, water has been getting in at the front of the window just where the outer sealing strip meets the corner. It's going to need a re-skin at some point and some remedial work to the frame of the door.
Step 3: Fit the new window
Here's a tip, if you've got to replace the rails on the window, make sure you mark the exact position of the old rails before taking them off. That way you wont have the window too far forward or backward when it comes to refitting. fitting the window was just fiddly, there's two rollers which have to fit in a channel which would be easy enough if you didn't have the rest of the door frame to consider.
Step 4: Try and fit a new lock.
I managed to get the old lock barrel out easily enough, mini locks are only held in place with a clip at the back. Unfortunately the new barrels would not fit the handles. My guess is that the aftermarket barrels have a poor quality casting. The solution is to file the barrels down a bit. A job for another day, hey the rest of the doors work!

One thing I have learnt from this excercise is to inspect the state of all rubber seals before you start a job. The seals on my window could of benefitted from being changed, I'm sure I'll pay for that at a later date.

posted by Andy Tyrrell @ 1:09 PM