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Cure for a howling window!
Our 91 740 had developed so much wind noise at the upper back edge of the drivers window that you’d have to yell to carry on a conversation and you’d get an ear full of water at the car wash. Was driving me nuts to the point of dumping our beloved brick. I pulled the door apart per the FAQ’s and tried Rob Bareiss’s suggestion of trying to bend the window track back a bit with not much luck as the track is welded inside the door. The problem was that the window was “sagging” at the front by about 3/4 inch or more so, as it went up, it hit the top weather-stripping at an angle and, in effect, jammed in the opening cockeyed with an 1/8th inch gap at the top rear corner, right by the drivers ear. I grabbed the window at the bottom and by holding up on the front as the window went up, could make it seat correctly in the opening. No real practical way I could see to remove the excess play by adjusting the scissor mechanism that moves the window up and down either. After a considerable amount of trial and error ( mostly error), I hit on the solution and the window is now tight as a drum ( no wind noise and it doesn’t leak).
A piece of standard TV coax cable fits the window channel snugly and is about 17/64th OD if I recall ( don't quote me on that :> ). I placed a 6” length of coax in the channel behind the mirror, greased it and ran the window up over it. The window seated perfectly and I thought I was home free but it consistently hung up going down and the window tended to push the coax up out of position in the channel. Back to the drawing board. I finally found the answer in the scrap box of my junky but beloved woodworking shop where I came across a strip of Lexan. This is a white, very slippery, dense, durable polymer used to make woodworking jigs etc plus numerous other things and is workable with common woodworking power and hand tools. I used the TV coax as the gauge to set my table saw fence to roughly 17/64th and ripped off about a one foot length. I flipped the piece on it's side and ran it through the saw again so I ended up with a one foot length of lexan, 17/64th square. I sanded it on my power sander to remove the burrs and saw teeth marks. For the test run, I cut off about a 6” piece and beveled one end to about 45 degrees and applied a little white lithium grease. I inserted the lexan in the window channel behind the mirror with the 45 deg. bevel end down which lets the window transition from the channel on to the lexan smoothly as it comes up like driving your car up on ramps. The lexan "ramp" has the effect of raising of forcing the front edge of the window back as it nears the top of it’s travel which in turn forces the top rear corner back into proper position. I figured I’d be adjusting on this Rube Goldberg till doomsday but presto!, it worked on the first try. Couldn’t believe it. Only unknown is if it will be pushed up in the channel by the window over the long haul but it has stayed put so far without problems. If you have a lot of slop in your windows with wind noise, this’ll work I (almost) guarantee it.
bl 184K and rollin'
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