Well, the ever helpful Steve Sarre of this very forum came up with a spare window channel complete with rubber/felt insert, and amazingly it arrived today. Huge thanks to Steve, who is very knowledgeable and super helpful, top man.
I decided to do a couple of slight modifications to Steve's item before fitting, a) his was held on by a single pop rivet rather than a torx screw, so I whipped out the welder and welded on a captive nut, which will save drilling out the rivet every time I need to get at the door lock. Although it's working now, lock microswitches are common failure points on these cars so I'm sure I'll want to get back in there again eventually. b) I also welded on a tiny prong to hold the rubber insert fully in the channel.
It's a bit fiddly to re-fit, but a good helping of patience got there in the end, and it's all back together again. I'm happy to report that the door now shuts with a satisfying "whump", with the window up or down, as it should do especially on a Volvo!
So there were actually 3 reasons I decided to go inside the driver's door. The first is the above mentioned window channel, now sorted. The second was that the microswitches have been playing up for a while on the door lock, so the courtesy lights only came on intermittently, if ever. However, just recently they have failed to go OFF when the door is shut, and I've had a flat battery on 3 occasions over the past month, so something had to be done.
I removed the lock, and thoroughly de-greased it. I could see the suspect microswitch, it's the one that is activated when the door is shut and de-activates when the door is open, it's operated by a long curved piece of white plastic that pivots at one end. I've had this problem before on another door, and the solution in both cases has been to carefully clean up the part of the plastic arm where it pushes the microswitch, rough it up with a piece of abrasive paper and glue on a thin square of additional plastic. I used a section of the bottom of a yoghurt pot and cleaned the surfaces up with carb cleaner, then glued it on with superglue. I left it overnight to harden with the switch in the engaged position to put some pressure on the new patch, and it works a dream. Before re-fitting I lubed up all of the plastic parts with Silicone lube (especially the pivot of the aforementioned white plastic arm), and lubed all the metal parts with GT85. Now works smoothly and reliably EVERY time, so a fiddly job but well worth doing.
Third reason wasn't a major problem but the switch on the driver's door switch pack that operates the right rear window was stuck and wouldn't move. Took the switch pack apart (carefully, there are four or five spring-loaded rods that like to take flight across the workshop) and found the problem that the relevant switch didn't have the operating rod properly located in its slot. This was made worse by the two halves of the switch not wanting to stay totally closed together when assembled, due to some wear/damage on the little plastic tangs, so I sorted that by judicious use of a tiny self-tapping screw. While I was in there I noticed that all the switch arms were quite dirty and dusty, and I know these units are prone to failure with the switch contacts burning, so I gave it a thorough clean up and blast with carb cleaner and contact cleaner, and it all looks in pretty good condition now, so hopefully that'll last for a good few more years. Plugged in the unit and re-connected the battery and it all works spot on, just as it should.
So all in all a very successful and worthwhile foray into the inside of the driver's door, sorted all the problems and hopefully it'll be good to go for a good few more years.
Thanks again to all on here and especially Steve, what a top forum this is!
Cheers
