Vent Window Disassembly

This is the vent window assembly from the left door. The rubber is petrified and as hard as a rock. I consulted the shop manual and studied the assembly for a while and could not determine how it was to be disassembled.


The following photos are of the right door vent window assembly.

There is a cam-shaped washer, a retainer, on the pivot shaft that had me baffled for quite some time. I had the upper pivot socket removed and I could not determine how the bottom pivot shaft was removed from the frame.

The yellow arrows on the photos above and below point to the retainer that had me baffled.


The washer in the photo below shows the solution. Notice the hole in the retainer. There is a smooth section that is in line with the point. The rest of the hole has splines. The retainer must be aligned in a certain direction....simple yet elegant.

The photo below shows the design of the pivot shaft. Notice there are two splines that are wider than the adjacent splines. The groove is where the retainer is located when the window is assembled for use. The stop prevents the retainer from moving out of position on the shaft.


By simply turning the retainer in the direction of the wide splines and tapping the pivot shaft with a small hammer the retainer will slip off and the window can be removed from the mounting frame.


I removed the glass from the frames and sent the frames to Tri-City Plating for chrome plating. While not original, I prefer the look of chrome instead of black paint in this application.

Also, today, I wrapped the front bumper to ship to Tri-City Plating for repair and chrome plating. The bumper is original and rust free but it is dented and twisted slightly.

As always, you can see larger versions of these photos by visiting my Flickr page. Please return to this page by clicking the "Back" button of your browser. Thanks for visiting!