Window Cranking problems

[ptothej]

Just wondering if this is a common problem with these cars or if its just me and my brothers tercels lol. It seems to me the colder it gets the stiffer and more difficult it is to rollup the windows.. particularly the front drivers.. the passenger front is right behind it in difficulty as well.. but if its warm it seems to rollup with next to no resistance.. is this a chronic tercel problem? Or just my own problem.. and if it is a chronic problem.. any suggestions? Both me and my brother have relubed are windows mechanism and after a couplde weeks say, its back to the way it was before :S HELP!

[gatemaster]

I have the same problem and was wondering what to do about it. The colder it gets the harder it is. Also it gets hard to crank in moist weather.

[ARCHINSTL]

It's mostly due to just, well, age (of the car, not the operator, I hasten to add...).
Lots of ups and downs over the years (again, of the car...).
As the windows travel over the years, they kinda "enlarge" the grooves in the strips, making them move at "little angles" rather than just smoothly vertically - again, just aging.
It can be helped by cleaning the tracks with alcohol/similar, then lubing them with silicone.
Another aid I found was to remove the panel and clean and grease all moving parts.
Tom M.

[Petros]

I have found the silicone spray lube works well in the window tracks and all the plastic parts. I would not use grease or oil based lube, they attract dust and make it sticky.

If you take the panel apart I would spray some brake parts cleaner on the moving parts and then lube them with graphite or some non-oil based lube. But my experience is that most of the friction is from the window tracks. If I do not put new silicone spray on it at least once a year they get sticky again.

[terkill]

i have another window related prob: is there a trick to preventing the window from lowering a CM or 2 after you crank it up to the top? i know how to fix it for good, but "in the meantime" is there an ol' trick

[takza]

I took the panel off my driver's side door and went thru everything...tightening and lubing...adjusting. WD40 works fairly well in the window tracks....grease on the gears and pivots..or heavy oil at least.