Anyone ever changed the power window motors on 4th gens? I pulled off my door panel... like a monkey doing a math problem. I was contorting my arms in ways not thought possible. Any advice?

I am not familiar with the 4th gen window motors, but usually, at least on the 2nd and 3rd gens, they aren't too hard. The motor themselves are put in with rivets. Drill the rivets out, the new motor should come with new bolts and nuts to put the replacement motor back on. There will be some attachment bolts or nuts to the window rails, that may take some contorting to get to. Get an inspection mirror and see if you can get a look at the bolts or nuts holding it to the rails. Undo that and you will be able to wiggle the motor out and put the new one in.

I did mine myself, it took about 2 hours. Wasn't too hard just a bit time consuming. Here is a great website that shows you how to do it http://shbox.com/page/windowmotor.html
I couldn't find any doorstops big enough like the website says to use, but i ended up using replacement paint rollers with great success.

Birdman has the best site I did mine with shoebox's site

Thanks, Birdman, I also did mine with the shoebox site. You are correct. It took about 2 hours, was not difficult, but cutting holes in the inside door panel was a little daunting. Parts were about $55. I found the doorstops at Wal-Mart.

Thanks, again, Birdman, I couldn't have done it without you!

Did my drivers door with out cutting anything... took a lil longer than 2 hours.. bout 3-4, but thats stopping every now and then.. just remember you can move the window up and down.. just get someone to hold the window for you while your workin the motor in... another pair of arms always helps. also pop rivits work wonders too. its WAY to pain staking to try using nuts and bolts.

Speaking of which I need to do my passenger side motor.. it still works good but you can tell the difference in motor strength when rolling up the window with the car not running.

Only took me about an hour and a half to do. Thanks to Shoebox

i clamped a vice grip to the window to hold it up use what you got

I used tape lol. Honestly if I had to do it again it wouldn't take as long.

This is my 4th 98 up Firebird I've had for 2.5 years now.
3 of those all had drivers door motor issues - just one of those things, or what?
I will be contorting arms soon also - thanks for that shoebox page tto, Birdman.

ney - anyone had problems with 02 Window Motors? My 2000 has major issues, I think they fixed them in the 02s.

I've owned 3 firebirds...i've replaced a total of 4 window motors during that time lol! In the WS6 i just recently replaced both window motors because they were both already starting to die. I did the first one using shbox, and the second one i flew through since i already knew how to do it. I had to drill into the fiberglass inside the door panel in order to drill the rivets out of the window motor brackets. Kinda a pain to drill...but once the holes are there you dont need to mess around with it again. To do both window motors from start to finish took me about 1 and a half hours, maybe a few minutes shorter. The most difficult part for me was doing the first motor and trying to get the gear on the motor to fit into the slot inside the door. I had to fiddle for a while before it popped into place...other than that it was all pretty simple stuff. GM needs to fix their window motor problem, the motors just arent strong enough to support the weight of these enormous glass windows.

I'm planning on buying all the stuff and doing the motor swap this coming Saturday. Any specific advice from those of you who have done this before?

Yeah use this guide...

http://shbox.com/page/windowmotor.html

it made the job SOOOOOO much easier for me by drilling small holes in the doors...i just drilled out the little rivet and the motor popped right out. I was able to do the entire job in about 20 minutes from start to finish

Yea use the shoebox site as a guide like Ryan said. Read it before hand, print off a copy of it if at all possible so you have it right there with you when you do the job, get all the tools you need together before hand so you're sure you have everything you need so you don't have to stop in the middle of the job to look for something and most important - take your time and don't rush especially when you're drilling out the rivets since the rivets that hold in the regulator are right there by the ones that hold in the motor and you don't want to confuse the rivets. Don't laugh about that either, I've seen them being confused before and I can tell you that the person who done it was swearing a blue streak since the regular is a pita to rivet back in place.

OK. The autozone near my house has the Lifetime warranty window motor for $65.99. Does this sound right?? This does NOT include a regulator. I don't need the regulator, do I (that's the spring thing right?)

Wow that sounds like a pretty good price! I got mine with the lifetime warranty but it was around 80 dollars, and i had to buy 2

Yea that sounds about right for the price. And no you don't need the regulator. The regulator is seperate from the motor itself so you don't need to replace it unless you're having problems with the regulator too.

Update -- Just had the motor replacement done. I decided to hire a shop, because I found one that would install my own part (with the lifetime warranty). They did an excellent job, and even riveted the new motor in (instead of using bolts). The guy only charged me for one hour of labor ($75.00) despite the fact that it took his worker 2 hours to complete the job. Works like a charm.

Well,

The regulator is rivited to the motor and it is under alot of tension (spring) be very careful when removing the motor from it. Also if you do just the motor make sure you either riviet it back together or bolt it real good b ecause the constant slamming of the doors will cause bolts to loosen.

Another things I have found is by the time the motor dies the regulator is usually ready to be replaced, either the rollers are bad or the regulator itself is rusted a bit.

The entire regulator with motor is like $150 from GM and I think the way to go.

Doug

I think that depends on where your car is kept. I keep mine garaged about 26 weeks a year (1/2) and the regulator looked fine. The shop just re-riveted the motor to the regulator.