1995 Jeep Cherokee Front Door Panel

Hey folks, I've got a '95 Jeep Cherokee I just bought recently. The undercarriage is a bit rusted and it's got a few small dents and lotsa nicks in the paint (it was a forest services vehicle).. But as yet I've not seen anything I can't take with my 4x4L.

Anyhow, introductions aside I have a problem: We were out offroading and my girl went to roll the window up as we hit a bump.. Basically, the window handle got torqued a bit too far and as a result I think a gear's snapped inside.. I can't take the door panel off though... It looks like I have to take off the window handle before I can completely remove the panel, but I can't figure out how to do that...

Anyone got a hint for me? Thanks in advance.

-Zen

no big trick just pry it off.

Thanks for that - I kinda suspected that, but when I tried prying with everything I could think of and nothing happened I was a bit concerned that there may be a trick to it.. I wound up having to use a pry-bar to get the thing off. Thanks again.

no problem, I tried everything the first time I popped it off. I was very affraid I was going to break something (and from my experience with other parts probably something expensive). I must have wasted half of a day trying to figure out the catch to getting it to release before I gave up, bought a book, and found out I could just pry it loose. (I felt kinda dumb after)

Hm, would that book happen to have any information on the manual windows? *points to his other thread*

Got the door in shambles, and no idea how to fix the windows.. Can't see anything up in there. ^_^ I suspect I have a stripped gear, but can't get to the guts very well.

Anyhow, thanks again.

-Zen

here's all I have on the window. let me know how it goes, I have the same repair on my horizon.

mine gets stuck if you roll it all the way down. then you have to lift it with needle nose pliers while cranking up and it will re-engage. it's down a couple steps on my priority to fix list though, so I have a while before I have to worry about it. barring more info I was planning on going to U-Pull-It and practice removing theirs in one piece before I opened up my own door.

http://www.strike9.com/file.ashx/path=%2fcapt_Apathy%2ffullsize%2fwindows.jpg

the book isn't usually much use most of the time. they usually seem to leave out most of what I need info on or tell me how to do fixes on the models a few years older or newer than mine while leaving mine out. every now and then I do find something useful in it.

Yeah, seems they're leaving me in the cold too - I don't need to remove the whole piece of glass, just the mechanism that drives the glass up and down.. The tracks and glass can remain - but without a schematic of the actual mechanism I dare not take it apart.

Ah well, back to the drawing board - thanks for the info.

-Zen

if it's any help I believe the gear is actually inside the tubular track. from what I can see of it, it looks like something close to a rack-and -pinion type set up, with the rack being flexible and running through the track.

I have a u-pull-it a few blocks away. when I get ready to fix mine I'll go find one that already has a damaged door, and cut the inside panel off so I can see how the whole thing works and which parts I need to replace. (man I love that cordless saws-all for pulling parts.)

I have a '99 Jeep Cherokee and the back right door window was broken by a drunken friend who cranked it farther than it was supposed to go. The thing would just make a clicking noise when I turned the handle. First I had to get the door panel off. There were some obvious screws in under the door handle, as well as clips all along the sides that I pried off with a screw driver. You must also unattach the door handle mechanism, but that was pretty simple. The hard part was the handle for the manual windows. I don’t know what the older jeeps have, but with a '99 Cherokee there is a metal clip in the handle. If you try to just pull the handle off with a screwdriver, like I did at first, you won't get anywhere and create the possibility of damaging the mechanism. You must reach between the handle and the door panel with something thin (I used a bent coat hanger) and hook the clip, then pull it out. Once that’s done the door panel will come off. On mine there was also "waterproofing" material which I removed.
At this point the door should be pretty much skin and bones. Now look for 2 things inside the door: A) The guide rail that attaches to the glass (it runs vertically near the middle of the window) and B) the handle mechanism and its tubing. The way the whole thing works is this: the pane of glass is attached to a slide that moves up and down the guide rail. The slide is also attached to a cable (red/twisted metal) that travels up the inside of the guard rail and out a hole at the top that faces the front of the vehicle. The amount of the cable that is outside of the guide rail assembly differs depending on how high the window is up. Now for the handle mechanism: Coming from either side of the handle crank are two sections of blue tube. The cable that leaves the guard rail should feed into one side of the tube that comes out of the handle assembly. When the handle is cranked one way it should draw the cable through the crank section and into the unoccupied section of tubing coming out the other side. When the handle is turned the other way it should push out the cable back into the guide rail assembly. By Pulling or pushing the cable it moves the window up or down. That is of course if it’s working correctly.
Anyways mine wasn’t working. After fooling with it for awhile inside the car I realized that it was able to roll the window up after I had moved the window up a bit by hand. Then when I tried to roll it down it would mess up. I realized that when I rolled up the window the cable and the tube coming from the guide rail were being pulled toward the handle assembly and its tube. The end of the tubing in the handle assembly would be pulled up against the tubing coming out of the guide rail and thus the tubing would not move but the cable inside of it would. However when I tried rolling down the window the two tubes would be pushed away from one another and the cable would not be smoothly pushed into guide rail. The cable would come out in-between the two ends of the tubing and bunch up inside the door. I found it necessary to duct tape the tube coming out of the handle mechanism and the tube leading into the guide rail mechanism together in order to allow the cable to move smoothly inside of them. In order to do this I had to remove both from the car then later reinstall them. I did notice that there was some adhesive and other crap around the two tube ends that I ended up taping together. Because of this I think that these two tubes are originally attached by some sort of tape/adhesive when they leave the factory. However if your drunk friend ends up rolling the window down too hard this old tape is forced apart and the two tubes are no longer held together. Thus the fuck up. Hope that this is the same problem other people are having and that this helps.

PS. Use really strong duct tape otherwise you will have to do it again!!

How to you clean or lubricate the wire in the Guide rail? Mine is hard to roll up or down?