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SURMOD
1930 Hudson Super 8
Rebuilding the Window Winder
Three of the windows wind up and down flawlessly. But the drivers window is fine going up but needs encouragement going down by pulling down on the glass as you wind it down. It was time to investigate and find out why, and then make it work properly.
This picture shows the housing for the crank assembly. The three odball machine screws and nuts indicate that the unit was previously disassembled.
Inside the crank housing there are 3 components. The square piece that the handle fastens to changes shape inside and has two paddles so to say. These paddles are shaped in a manner that catches two end pieces of a spring that circles around the wall of the housing. The third piece has two protrusions that slip over the paddles and on the other (outer) side is a gear that meshes with the large gear that raises and lowers the window frame assembly.
The piece on the left which is the piece that the window crank is fastened to is showing a lot of wear. The gear assembly on the right is also showing wear.
It was necessary to fill in the worn areas with my mig welder.
This picture shows the bad areas filled in before I ground it off smooth.
After studying the components and seeing how they work together I determined that it had been previously reassembled incorrectly (left picture). The paddles on the shaft were not lined up properly with the tabs on the ends of the spring. When you cranked it clockwise the paddle would grab the tab on the end of the spring and pull it around. But when cranked counterclockwise it would only bump up against the tab and it wouldn't move efficiently. It also had a tendency to make the spring walk up the shaft.
This picture shows the proper way for the components to be assembled. I also welded a couple bumps on the paddles to keep the spring from walking up the paddles.
This picture shows the end piece slid over the paddles and the gear cleaned up of all the burring.
This picture shows the assembly without grease just to make it more visible. It was pulled apart and heavily greased before assembly.
This picture shows the window crank and gear assembly. In the forground and in the centre you can see a pin, that is slightly leaning. It's actually very loose and it was originally set in place similar to a rivet, from the factory. I suspect that the improper assembly last time put a lot of load pressure on that pin which put everything out of alignment so that the gears were not messing straight on.
This is the back side of the assembly and you can see where I mig welded a few times around that pin to insure that it stayed perpendicular and firmly in place.
The window now cranks up and down effortlessly.
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