Diving into the Door, Part 2

In Part 1 of this saga, I detailed removing the door card and finding a crucial reset procedure so the window lift mechanism would work again.  Now, it was time to remove the window, replace the sliders and grease everything up.  There was one more web link that was really useful for that procedure:

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?709563-Replacing-sliders-and-greasing-front-door-tracks

Now that I could raise and lower the window, the glass came right out.  The sliders are held in place by a spring clip, and are similarly easy to replace.  Here's an new and old slider side-by-side:

So, then the next step is to clean the old grease out of everything, and then lubricate it all as well as possible. I started with spray white lithium grease, and you know what?  I hate that stuff!  It goes everywhere except where you want it, and I'm not convinced the thin layer of lubrication it lays down is in there for the long haul. In addition, it's really only good for hard contact points, not the rubber seals on the front track.

One Internet pundit had mentioned a product by 3M called "Silicone Paste".  A solid paste designed for lubricating rubber seals in brake calipers and the like, it seemed the perfect, waterproof, heat-resistant, long-lasting solution.  Of course, eight ounces costs about $22 on the web, and I would have to wait for it to come.  No big box auto store had it, but I finally got the bright idea of checking a local shop that supplies body shops - Snavely and Dosch.  They had it in stock for $24 - sold!  For the metal-to-metal stuff, I chose a semi-synthetic grease from Valvoline:

I reinstalled the glass, and then the fixed triangular window. When I had removed that, I noted that there were two flat fender washers underneath the bottom fitting, which is accessed from under the door.  Later, I found two more of those flat washers in the door.  Had I missed them, or miscounted?  I tried installing all four, and they wouldn't even fit.  I put it together with three, and the window sat too high and hit the weatherstripping on the door frame.  Two it was, and then a long process of fiddling until the triangular window fit, and the side window would slide up and down without binding.  The system must sense current flow to decide that the window is bound - I had to do that window reset procedure from Part 1 about four times during the process.

By now, I'm realizing something kind of disheartening.  Those clips I replaced were actually just fine.  The entire mechanism can be lubricated, once the door panel is off, without disassembling the window at all - I could have saved a lot of time and grief!  But, sometimes (often, actually) you have to disassemble something to know how it works.  Then, you can work on it blind.  I couldn't figure out what to do, reaching through small holes in the door, until I actually had learned the mechanism.

So, if you have one of these (or if I ever have to do the driver's door), here's the deal.  With the window all the way up, you can access the entire rear track of the window (toward the back of the door).  Lubricate that with grease.  I started the process using disposable acid brushes, but quickly realized that a hand wearing a good latex glove could do a much better job.  Just grab a glob of grease, and carefully  lubricate the entire track.  I wasn't able to get a photo of that, but I did get the sliding track that pushes the window up and down.  Lubricate that the same way:

While there, you can also access the gear teeth that lift the mechanism - give that a good hit of grease too:

Now, put on a clean pair of gloves, and switch to the silicone paste.  Starting at the bottom, you can put a glob on your fingers, and run it up the rubber track.  Use a lot.  You want to add plenty of lube in the slot between the two rubber pieces:

Then, lower the window all the way, and put more of the silicone paste in the upper part of the window frame.  It's hard to put too much - any excess will be expelled when you raise the window.

So, once it was all back together and aligned, it worked great, with the window sliding up and down with ease. Well worth the effort.  After all was tested, I reinstalled the foam seal, airbag and door card.  That door card was hard to get to snap into place, but patience won the day.  Then there was one more task: reset the airbag code.

I have the Bavarian Technic scan tool, which attaches to the standard BMW maintenance port, and to a laptop computer.  Sure enough, I got two codes on the passenger airbag:

I cleared those, and was good to go.  Just to be safe, on the driver-side window (which was working fine), I lubed the upper part of the window track with the silicone paste, and shot some spray lube on the back side into what I hope was the rear track.

So just one nagging question remaining... where did these come from?