daverea.com

Funny thing… it’s really hard to get obscure car parts on a Sunday. You start with the big parts stores like AutoZone and Pep Boys, but they inevitably don’t have what you need. So you hit up the dealerships, but what few dealers are open Sundays apparently give their parts departments the day off. My solution to the imminent unavailability of the part was to shovel the innards of my door into the foot well and go inside for a root beer. I rigged up the window with a bungee cord so that it stayed most of the way up, locked the car, and hoped for the best.

This morning, I tackled the task of finding the part. After calling a few of the bigger parts places around town – the guys who sell to the mechanics – I found myself dialing the ominous digits to reach … dum dum dum! … the dealer. They empathetically informed me that the cable I need – a fifty-cent string of steel cable with two-penny round retaining nuts on each end – is only sold as an assembly. That means it comes with the motor, with the gearhead, with the sliding track and with the spiral drive unit. Oh, and that means it costs $291. At that price, it should come with a new friggin’ window.

Next stop – the salvage yards. I called around Rochester with no luck … evidently they’re all on the same computer system and they all came up with beans. Finally, a guy out in Brockport offered to sell me the whole deal, pulled from a wreck, for $65. God bless whoever wrecked their Intrigue for the salvation of my checking account…

Now, the plan is, to bug out of work at about 3pm and head home to install the new part. It should be a pretty easy job, just pick out what’s left of the “donor” Intrigue’s window glass, bolt everything together and plug in the wires. I guess the upside of buying the whole kluge is that I don’t have to re-route the cable through the brakcets (which are packed with white lithium grease) and I don’t have to re-wrap it around the drive spindle just the right way…

If all goes well, I’ll be able to post an update (and maybe some pics?) once I get down to the ambulance base tonight… to be continued!