So I stopped at a teller machine to make a bank transfer, and couldn't lower the driver's side window. There wasn't any visible ice on it, but I guess just below the door seal it was frozen solid. I pulled around so someone behind me could use the ATM, and stood there with the door part open to see if I could press auto-down and then help the glass down with my hands. It didn't work, but it was cool how you could see the whole door sheet metal bend inward a little bit on 'auto down' and bend outward on 'auto up'.... So I walked back to the ATM and did the transaction standing up, then drove home. All the way home I briefly alternated down and up on the window button, and just as I got home the ice finally let go and the window rolled down. I ran it back up, down, up a few times for good measure. Then I tried the front passenger window and it too came unstuck after a few tries. (Probably having the heat on in the car was helping too.) Tried the left rear and couldn't get it to budge. Then I tried the right rear, and on the second try there was a crunch-snap-plop from inside the door, and now I can press the control down or up and hear the regulator inside the door very happily running all the way down and all the way back up, while the window never moves. Eh, so I guess digging into the right rear door is in my future now. Just not this weekend, I'm thinking.... -Chap
I finally got around to this. I just hadn't been using that window, but I was visiting my sister and she rolled it down, and of course there was no ice this time so the glass slid down and wouldn't come back up. We were on the way to a play, so we ended up stopping at Starbucks on the way where she got a drink and I pulled off the door trim in the parking lot and kind of perched the glass back on the regulator so we could lock up the car at the show. Then I drove home with the back seat full of door trim parts. After getting home, I put it back together right. It turns out no glue was used. The regulator track is metal with a U-channel in the top that is press-fit over a rubber U-channel that goes over the bottom edge of the glass. It's quite tight once it's all pressed together. In my winter mishap, the whole track, rubber channel included, had just been pulled off the bottom edge of the glass and fallen to the bottom of the door. To replace it, I just cleaned up the rubber and the bottom of the glass, put the rubber on first, then carefully pressed the track over the rubber using bar clamps to the top edge of the glass. Because the glass is curved, I worried more about breaking it than I would have if it were flat, but it handled the necessary force without a problem. It seemed to work best to start the track at one end and then move the bar clamp along it, getting it seated the rest of the way across. I did not use any lube on the rubber or glass, since I want it as hard to dislodge as possible. One part of the reassembly seems to be inserting the rubber window-run channels back down into the door tracks with the glass in place - that is, trying to force the rubber to slide down into the door and simultaneously around the window edge. I got one about halfway, then it would just go no further. I pulled it back out and smeared just the thinnest invisible coat of silicone plumber's, or brake caliper, grease along the rubber, then slid it right into place with no trouble at all, and likewise for the other one. -Chap
