My Coupe is one of those special "trouble free" Audis - no power windows or locks, and no sunroof. Well, the 4k sunroof is not as cool as the old 5k one, which actually lets you look forward out the roof while driving, and I survive without it. Power locks on a two door seem a little like overkill, too - though I am sure someday they will be added! But, power windows are addictive. Often the best breeze is obtained with the opposite side window, tollgates are so much easier to deal with if your right hand is shifting and operating the window, and let's face it, power windows are cool. One summer day I thought to myself, I have this 81 5000 turbo out there in the field, it's roughly the same vintage as my coupe, why don't I look to see how tough it would be to use the electric regulators for my windows? First I removed the 5kt door panels. The regulators have one wire connector, and these mechanical (not cable driven) regulators are held into the door by 5 bolts. So out they came. Then I pulled the passenger Coupe door panel. No sense in screwing up my side of the car! Out of five mounting points, three were already in exactly the right place in the Coupe door! The fourth was off by roughly 1 cm. Who needs five? Removing the manual window mechanism was fairly easy, but taking the channel the mounts to the glass was a real chore. Two hours of soaking the old mastic with MEK, methylene chloride, acetone, and well, everything else I could find, cutting at it with an Exacto knife and bending the bracket with a slip joint pliers eventually got it off - without breaking the glass! The electric assembly went in fairly easily, bolting to the three existing points and the one I had to redrill. (they've made it easy - the first bolt is a stud on the mechanism, no three hand work here). I lubed the heck out of it before installation so it wouldn't get gummy on me soon. I had to cant the window bracket (from the 5kt) out and up a bit from stock. The 5kt windows go pretty much straight up and down, in the Coupe they slide at a slight angle. I used a cut off piece of a mending plate and a couple of extra nuts and bolts. Several washers were required to space the glass outward to the correct alignment. I still can't believe this worked. I spent about $3 to do this job. I wired a slipshod parts bin harness up to the passenger window for a day or two while I psyched up to do my side. Well, apparently the driver's glass was replaced at some point, and the small amount of RTV holding the glass into the bracket came out in 10 minutes. Big relief! Unfortunately I was never able to align the glass as sweetly as the passenger side. It still works though. Now I had a set of wires running out of each door through the little hinge boot, with nothing in the car to run them. First I cut a horrible notch in a spare piece of console plastic and mounted a couple of switches and part of my old 80 5kt's window switch panel into that notch. The harness is a compendium of what I had lying around, all Audi connectors, and I sketched the wiring diagram and tucked into the back of my Bentley three ring binder. I wired the windows to direct battery power instead of ignition (well, LRR) because I'm sick of power window that can't be closed (or opened) when the car is off. I have no children to run down my battery so it's an ok feature. I'm using lighted switches from an 87 5ks but I haven't had any run down problems from them yet, of course we've only been down to about 9 DF so far this winter. I used a little two place fuse holder that looks like a relay socket, snapped it into my fuse box and connected it to one of the many heavy battery-red wires spraying out back there. The other fuse runs my power mirrors (they weren't fused at all!). When I replaced my dashboard it came from a 4kq. This gave me two nice correct mounting cutouts for my switches (and a place for my power antenna drop switch and my radar detector switch...) The mechanical regulators are nice - they're much faster than manuals, and I haven't yet noticed any slow down in cold weather, which is really nice. If anyone else ever wants to do this, let me know and I'll try to help talk you through it... and now you'll have the benefit of the photographs that David Ritter took when he did the same job! Since doing this I have finally installed some conventional, used cable type regulators. The Audi ones are quite good though I understand they do have a finite lifespan. Then one is confronted with an expensive dealer only part or aftermarket units that aren't as quick. I'll burn that bridge when I come to it... |
