RECONDITIONED V W VANAGON WINDOW LIFT MOTOR

 Once in a while you run into something amazingly stupid. Take this BOSCH window lift motor for example. It is out of a 1990 V W Vanagon. This thing is about an inch and a half [more or less] square and about 5 inches long.   It looks pretty nasty, and that is after I did some cleaning on it.

 This is the flip side. Even nastier on this side.  But wait...it gets better...

 Well, maybe not actually better...inside, it looked like it had spent a good bit of time at the bottom of Lake Yuk! In fact it took about an hour to convince the brush holder [in my hand] to even come out of the motor body. That brush holder, by the way, has to carry the brushes, the brush holders, the pressure springs, and a set of starter coils.  There is so little room in that brush holder that the brushes have to be of STARTER BRUSH material, because they are so short. Carbon brushes would wear out in weeks, apparently...      Just try to buy starter brushes these days, particularly TINY little shits that could be used in this sucker!

 The armataure is supposed to be shiny and bright....not Lake Yuk black. See, the
V W people, in their infinite wisdom, placed the motor in the door of the Vanagon so rainwater runs right onto--and into--the motor. When I took it apart I got at least three tablespoons full of water out of it.  Good stuff, eh?  Yeah, results of grand engineering...  

Well, I DID finally find some starter brushes that I could cut down and I DID figure out how to install them in this sucker.  This is the reconditioned motor--looking better than new and ready to go back into that superbly engineered VW Vanagon door.  A door that now has a custom made water deflector over the window lift motor. Great stuff, re-engineering what the engineers should have done right in the first place.