Daihatsu Hi-jet Broken Window Winder Repair (part 2)

Last Updated on February 21, 2023

Luckily I managed to find a new Daihatsu Hi-jet winder mechanism to the replace the mangled one in the door, it was only fifteen quid and came from a hi-jet roughly the same age as mine. It does look a bit like a part from a bionic leg though!

So off with the door panel again, this time I needed to unscrew the door release as well as the internal handle. It’s the door release handle hanging now on what looks like a length of wire. The plastic was covering the inside of the door, no chance that’s ever going to be quite the same now!

Then I noticed something I didn’t see the last time I was fishing around inside this door, a lump of wood! I’ve seen this before, the winder broke on a Vauxhall Nova I had years ago and I shoved in a lump of wood to jam the window shut, otherwise the window fell open all the time, especially if it was raining really hard on a motorway!

And in the photo below you can see what happened when I pulled the bit of wood out!

Thankfully the old winder mechanism came out really easily. I was surprised to find out the bolts were 10mm, it’s amazing how much stuff on each of the cars I’ve owned can be dismantled with a single 10mm spanner! In the photo below the top winder is the bent and broken one, the bottom mechanism is the ebay jobbie.

So the window winder mechanism went in without any trouble, but for some reason it only winds halfway up the door, I can’t for the life of me figure out why. This is clearly no good at all for closing the window. I had my wife stick her hand in the door cavity and she managed to dig out the small plastic doings that attach the window to the winder mechanism. It was this bit that was the bit I was really worried about having to replace, it’s tough ordering parts if you’ve got no idea what they’re called!

I compared this door to the working drivers door window winder, and it really shouldn’t wind all the way to the bottom of the door cavity as it does in the photo below.

Well I guess I’ve got the parts now so I might go see if our friendly local garage and help me out! At least I tried!

Whilst eating a sandwich shortly after this adventure in failure my wife asked why I didn’t just replace the entire door. Arg, why didn’t I think of that! I didn’t just marry her for her looks ya know!