Power window lost home?, Reliably stops 1.5" from top Options

[HectortheRican]

Can this happen, guys?

The driver side window otherwise works fine. It's not off its track. It rolls all the way down and almost all the way back up reliably - it just stops 1.5" from the top.
Could the motor have lost its 'zero' somehow?

Edit: At it's final level, 1.5" away from the top, it behaves exactly like it would if it were all the way up. Upon toggling the switch up, it makes no effort to move. Not sluggish or anything.

This post has been edited by HectortheRican: Jan 10, 2017 - 10:43 PM

[HectortheRican]

The glass unbolts from the regulator so you can pull it out and place it in the backseat or somewhere else safe, then pulling the regulator and motor is a contortion act like it is with every car but I seem to recall the Celica wasn't so bad.

Had a similar problem recently.
For me the driver side would only come down about 4 inches before stopping.

The cable had gotten frayed and was a big tangle, when the roller hit the tangled part of the cable it would stop. Bought a new window regulator with motor on ebay for 100usd. Installed it with a friend (who was once a pro auto mechanic) took an hour or two. Then bought him dinner.

Some difficulties we encountered:
* the push rivets that secure the inside panel to the door, push the center inward, then pry the outer part out (we broke 2 or 3 of them before realizing)
* the big plastic film moisture barrier, it was stuck in with some kind of gasket sealer for me. Lamely pushed it back into position afterwards.
* with a big tangled cable binding up window operation we were less able to get the window into a position where it's easy to remove the bolts that hold it in. If you're having the same problem you might need to contort your hand in order to feel around inside there.

Here's a link that helped us out.
http://www.6gc.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=35218

edit: spelling

Thanks guys, excellent advice. I'll hopefully get on it by the end of the week. I'm busy house-hunting, so this couldn't have worse timing. Also, the one of the 10 times per year it rains in ABQ happened to be yesterday. I sealed the crack with a towel, but it got extremely humid in the car... so much so that the vinyl softened up a bit and is slightly coming off in my hands.

Would you recommend trying to replace only the regulator and potentially wasting time if the motor is bad? Or just doing the whole assy.

Here is another detail I left out. Before this happened, under normal operation (rolling down), the window would hop down very slightly (to about the same level it is currently maxed at) then would resume normal operation all the way down. It would not hop on the way up. Do you think this was a sign that the regulator was going out? It had that slight hope for a few years.