Friday 6 November 2015

What are you and Where did you come from.

I want to find out the history of the van there are a couple of options the first is to get a Birth Certificate from VW (http://automuseum.volkswagen.de/en/certificates-and-data-sheets.html) but this can take up to 8 weeks, the second and quicker option is a combination of the VIN number and M-Plate.

The M-Plate lists most of the information about the van like manufacture date, original paint colour and interior specification, according to many forum posts the M-Plate state that it is located behind the passenger seat or in the cab to the left of the cold air vent behind the kick plate, however I found mine behind the drivers seat and by using vw-mplate.com I have begun to dig into the history of the van and gives me plenty of leads for the restoration.

So I broke the window lifter now I have to fix it!!!

Here's my How To Guide for replacing the window lifter, you can see the small gap at the top of the window where we managed to rig it so it would close at least that far.


To get to the winder you need remove door furniture and door card.


Start by popping the plastic cover off the winder and undo the center screw holding the winder on.


Next remove the door pull this is nice and simple the finger guard pops out you can just see the small gap on the right by the pull lever pop a small flat blade screwdriver in there and lever it out.


After the finger plate is out you undo the screw behind it and the whole thing comes away except for the actual door pull.


Before the door card will come up you finally need to remove the handle this is as easy as it looks undo the two screws and it should unclip.


If your door card is clipped in you should be able to remove the clips and take the door card off, mine was pop riveted on so I had to drill them out before it would come off.


Pop the winder back on and screw it in place this will make moving the winder up and down easier.


As you can see from the picture below at some point the lifter had been repaired with welds but these have rusted and broken off, at this point I undid the two small bolts as this and the channel the window sits in will be replace. 


Using a larger flat blade screwdriver gently ease the runner of the glass starting at one end and work across   



Bolt the new lifter in place and place the rubber protector in the channel you can use the original if it is in good condition or replace it.


Reverse the process of taking the door furniture and you are done, the whole process took me half an hour whilst taking pictures but should only take around 10 -15 minutes the only bit I was really careful with was prizing the glass from the lifter so I didn't break it.