Catch-up pt II - Window winders

Remember these?

Not had a vehicle with window winders for quite some time, in fact, I think my beetle might have been the last car and that was when I was 19.  It's not for me!  So, conversation kit purchased and I set about fitting electric windows. 

It's a big bag of wires and I just about got my head around the wiring diagram - well, everything had a place to plug in so that's a good enough start for me. 

Note to anyone reading this, removing T5 door cards is not easy and not a job to be undertaken if you're the type of person who gets upset when plastic clips get broken. There is some serious engineering gone into the clips and they hold on tight.  You WILL break at least one!

The window winders are also a clever bit of design with a pinch of the inner ring they slide sideways and pop off. I'll keep it polite by saying that the passenger one was a little stubborn. 

Having got the door cards off, fishing the wires through the hinges and mounting the switches was pretty simple stuff. With the wire lay across the van floor I could now wind my windows up and down (both sides) with the push or pull of a button. That's more like it.  It's worth noting that the kit I used does not have the most powerful motors and at first I wondered whether the windows would ever reach the top.  Still, there's a bit of nostalgia there as I'm sure the buttons are from the old Audi 80 (my Dad had one of these).

Time to unclip a few wires and route the cables properly which caused some major head scratching and searching.  Finding all the torx screws to remove the lower dash so that I could route the cable to the passenger side was an event.  It looked like a bomb had gone off in the front of the van. 

You'll be pleased to know that I managed to work all that in reverse and put it all back successfully.