Lotus Europa Community
Lotus Europa Forums => Garage => Topic started by: ron parola on Wednesday,February 04, 2015, 05:39:40 PM
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Since taking the car apart for paint and it's still at the paint shop AND I retired; what to do? When taking the door apart I was amazed how heavy it was, most of that seemed to be in the window regulator. So what could be done? first lightened the regulator's arm. The motor was the heaviest part; it turns out that GM #16629834 seems to ALMOST fit the bill, same gear pitch and diameter, the mounting holes are off but a drill and a bit of metal takes care of that. The original regulator and motor weighs 780 grams and JUST the original motor weighs 700, don't know about both parts, they exceeded the scales range. And since the newer motor is a polarity switched motor rather than the dual field coil type the black ground wire is no longer needed. The stock window switches are double pole double throw centre off so they will work with the newer motor. BUT since I don't have my car back, I don't know how strong they are as far as running the window up, it feels strong enough. These motors are used on Buick, Chev, Cadillac, 97 to at least 2002. Will get back to you on that. RP
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WOW, that old motor is so heavy it cracked the concrete! :FUNNY:
But seriously, nice work! Looks like it should work great... :welder:
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Pretty clever of you! :beerchug: That seems like it will work. Let us know how it turns out.
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Sweet!
The ground wire is still required. It goes to the body of the window motor.
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:)
Hey Ron, now that's a modification I like ! It's always puzzled me why Lotus used such large motors just to move a bit of glass up and down (the 60s Elan is the same style), I suppose the just used a wiper motor and adapted it to fit the purpose. So finding a modern alternative is great, the fact it's lighter as well is a double bonus.
Brian
ps retirement is good. The first few weeks are "what do I do now ?", but in 12 months time you'll wonder how on earth you managed to find time to go to work..... ;)
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JB, no the ground isn't required, the original Delco motor has 2 sets of windings in the field coils,one up and one down. These windings are connected to positive via the window switch and ground via the black wire, the switch chooses which winding to use. The later permanent magnet motor has no field coil it merely needs the motor polarity reversed for up and down. The window switch now has to be wired differently to reverse the current flow, which these switches are designed to do. IF electrical noise is a problem then indeed the motor may have to be grounded. And why did they use such a big motor? Well Lotus tried NEVER to make a part if it was available elsewhere, what other domestically made (UK that is) car had window lift motors? Rollers, Bentley, Alvis, Jaguar, of those what is the cheaper car? And even Jag out sourced to the US for some items that were cheap in the US but expensive for the limited UK luxury market, steering columns, Saginaw, AC compressors York and Harrison, PS pumps Delco, EVEN Rolls bought out hydraulic lifters from GM. And Rolls and Jag bought Gm or Borg Warner Auto boxes. So the size of the motors was probably dictated by price and the fact these motors were designed for large American car windows and GM made MILLIONS of these motors, yet I know blah, blah, blah, Cheers rp
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I know this is an old post but did these lighter motors work?
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You want to save weight? Bin the electric motors and use a leather strap to raise and lower the window. Cheap, cheerful and light.
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You want to save weight? Bin the electric motors and use a leather strap to raise and lower the window. Cheap, cheerful and light.
That was the method used on the London Underground brown trains when I went to school many years ago.
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You want to save weight? Bin the electric motors and use a leather strap to raise and lower the window. Cheap, cheerful and light.
My passenger side (wife side) motor quits after short use. She probably would want to raise it with a strap, LOL. These cost half as much and are lighter.
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The poster, Ron, Had some health issues, and his car was sold, last year, I think it was.