This work guide covers the installation of a universal power window kit into the HR. This kit should be suitable for any old holden as long as the winders are not very stiff.

This first image shows how the kit was received from eBay, a plain box but everything was well sealed and packed.

This first image shows the complete (4 door) kit, this includes 4 motors, various gears to slide over your winder knob, various covers to cover the setup behind your trim, an assortment of screws and brackets for holding the mechanism, 3 switches for the non-driver doors and a main switch block containing switches for all 4 doors. It also includes a wiring harness and instructions.

This is a better look at the kit, everything you need is included in the kit to get it going, I only used a few meters of extra wiring since I didn’t put the main control unit on the drivers door but instead in the console.

This is my sneaky little daughter weaseling her way into the photo and slyly trying to touch something I’ve only just told her not too…

This is the wiring harness and controls laid out so that I could get an idea of how I wanted to wire the car up, I’ll add a wiring diagram at the end of this guide but it was all very simple.

This is my first target, it is a non-standard trim but I will also be showing the standard trims later in this guide.

Your first move is to remove the handles on these old girls, the handles actually help to hold the trim in place. There is a work guide covering removal or handles and trims here: http://gallery.oldholden.com/ReaperHR/HRWorkguides/DoorHandleRemoval/

Next on this door I need to remove the lock nut from the remote window knob as this also will hold the trim on.

Finally this trim holds a speaker and tweeter so before walking off with the trim I need to unplug them also.

This is the target of the operation, the winder knob, you’ll notice it has a splined head which you’ll need to match up with some of the gears from the kit, if you look closely at the gears you will see that they are numbered for their sizes, the HR used gears marked 8A.

These are the gears in their packages, you’ll see in the middle of this package are some larger gears, these gears slide over the small gears which slid over the knob, the larger gears go into the mechanism of the power window unit.

Here is one of the 8A gears in position on the winder knob, I haven’t pushed it right on yet because I want to check it inside some of the larger gears first, but when I did put it on I had to give it a light tap with a hammer to get it to go flush with the knob (and hence get as much spline of the knob covered by this gear. There is also a small tag left on the gear from breaking it off of its bracket that it was attached to, I cut that off flush with a knife.

Here I have slid the smaller gear into a larger gear to make sure it all fit fine before assembly, no problems and it was ready to go. The large gear shown isn’t the one I used at the end though, I swapped it with a lower profile gear and with a low profile cap the whole mechanism was barely intrusive or noticeable. If you were making custom trims you could actually completely cover the winder knob as this kit does not protrude past the actual knob when assembled.

Test placing of the motor part of the mechanism. It is best to put your window right down and test fit the unit so that you are sure the window won’t conflict with the mechanism or its brackets when it is wound down.

Here I am test fitting the top gear of the mechanism, note that it needs to be flipped over here, the black side of the mechanism should face the trim so that when you push the spacers onto the back of it they will keep the unit from pushing against the door skin.

I am placing the main drive gear in position here to see how it will fit and to make sure it won’t slide over the original setup and jam against the skin or anything similar.

As you can see here the original setup has a nice step that this gear can sit against, in the end though this wasn’t necessary to worry about, I used some legs supplied in the kit and a lock ring also supplied which held the gear away from the door anyway, I also ended up using a lower profile gear.

The small gear will be very tight on your winder knob, I couldn’t get any to just slide over the knob by hand which I thought was a good thing because they then won’t just fall off. A light tap with the hammer will be enough to get the gear into position.

I am test fitting the main gear over the small gear to make sure that it will all sit nicely and will still fit well after tapping the small gear on.

Here I am test fitting the mechanism to decide how I will run it along the door. What I didn’t remember with this door was that it had been in an accident and the inside skin was twisted, it was unnoticeable by eye but I actually had to cut a piece out of the skin to get the unit to sit flat, this wasn’t necessary on the other doors (which means original doors can get these units fitting very easily indeed).

Now I am trying the lower profile gear that I actually ended up using, this gear allowed me to use a very low profile cover and as you’ll see in the finished product photos the covers are barely noticeable, in fact if you were making custom trims you could just skip the winder hole because this kit will sit very flat against the inner door skin.

With the top gear in place it is time to test fit the unit. The power window unit can bend in two directions. The black part of the unit is actually black segments of plastic surrounding the cables that are used to drive the gears from the motor.

Here I am checking the fitting of the door trim with the power window unit in place, obviously the speaker will conflict with the unit in this position so I’ll be moving the motor further along which will get the cables away from the speaker.

When test fitting the unit it is best to have the window down to its full depth so that you can see that the motor isn’t going to be hit by it when it brings it down. In this image the wires to the right are from the central locking and nothing to do with these power windows.

This is my customized center console, originally it was my aim to get some cup holders coming out of above the small tweeters and a dvd screen mounted to the top for the kids to watch on long drives. Instead I’ve decided to mount the main door control block to the center and not use each of the door control buttons, mainly this is so that the kids won’t have any control of the winders in the rear (I suspect that it would only take a short while for them to work out the buttons) and I figure if I’m not using them then why bother having the front one on either and instead put the controls so both seats in the front can access them.

Here I am test mounting the main control block on the top of the center console between the two front bucket seats.

I am taking the top off the console and checking how I will be running the wires for the power windows down behind these mini-subwoofers and out through the bottom then under the front seats to the doors.

There is a few ways to mark out where the holes are to be drilled for the control block, sometimes a bit of grease on the pillars where the screws will go and then sitting the unit in place will leave a spot of grease behind as a guide for where to drill.

Another way of doing it is to get the wires out of the way and then sit a piece of paper on the top and using a pencil rub where the pillars are to leave behind a mark, and then use the paper to guide where to drill.

This image shows the paper marked with the positions of the holes.

Next I sit the paper on the console lid and use the marked holes as guides for where to drill.

Now with the holes drilled for the mounting screws I need to run a hole through the center for the wiring harness to pass through, I could take the wires from these blocks but have decided its easier to just run a larger hole through so have marked it to suit the largest fitting, this will all be under the control block so it will be hidden anyway.

Once the wires have been run through the console lid (or door trim if you are mounting it to the trim) you’ll need to fit the supplied wire fittings to the wires that will be plugged into the main unit, before doing this however you should drill your door/console and push the wires through, that way you only have a small hole for the wires rather than a huge one for the whole block. When the wires are able to reach the wires from the control unit you can then assemble them into the appropriate plastic block (supplied) that will hold them.

Here I am showing how the wires slot into the blocks, there is a tag on each wires end that will click when it is slid in and hold it in position.

When plugging the wires in be sure that they match the colour of the wires that their block will be mated with, here I am showing how the two sets of wires are matched, whatever colour went in matched the colour that came out.

Now with the wires run up to where the wires come from the main control block and plugged into their wire blocks they can be plugged together, after this the wires just need to be plugged into their switches and then from there into the motors.

My drivers side winder was the tightest of all of them so I decided to remove it from the door and give it a good greasing with kopr kote before reassembling it. I’ve also run kopr kote up the window channels to help the glass slide through.

In the kit you’ll find some small rubber block, these fit over some lugs on the main driving gear and will support the unit against the door skin, stopping it from twisting and allowing it to sit squarely.

Also in the kit are four rings which fit into the drive gear to stop it from sliding out of the driving mechanism. Note: Kopr Kote makes your hands go black.

Originally I tried running screws straight through the edge of the unit and into the door skin, this actually twisted the mechanism slightly and made it very hard for it to get the window up and down. In the end I found it easier to leave this end of the unit unsupported, it is very secure on the gears and when secured with the ring mentioned previously won’t be moving far at all. Either way there are brackets supplied in the kit that will allow you to secure this end and the motor end without twisting it if need be.

Here is the unit mounted and ready to go, this door skin was modified since it was twisted to allow the unit to pass through it but that would not be necessary on an undamaged or normal door.

Pictured are the covers that go into the door trim and cover this mechanism completely from view, there is one that pushes through the trim from the back and the other is a cap that screws in from the front.

The original hole in the trim was too small to take the cap so using the inside fitting I have marked the hole out on the trim and will cut it out with my gouging tool and then fit it.

With the hole cut out I’ve now mounted the inner cap, this cap will take the outer cap which covers the winder knob and all the gears etc

I can now put the trim back on, here you can see what would normally show if there were no caps supplied. The inner cap is just visible in the picture below the felt edge.

After putting the outer cap on the door is done, I’ve used one of the medium profile caps in this picture but later changed it to a very low profile cap which blended in quite nicely with the speaker and tweeter.

This is an image of the drivers side rear door mounted, note that I am leaving the switches inside the door so that my kids can’t play with them.

This image shows the passenger side rear door.

This image shows the passenger side front door.

This is the passenger side rear door with its original trim back on and the unit fitted behind it.

Finally, this is the passenger side front door completed, note the use of the lower profile cap to cover the unit, if the cap was painted the same colour as the trim or even if there was no hole there in a custom trim this conversion would be barely noticed.

This is an example wiring diagram for the conversion kit.

Review: I've found this kit to be excellent so far, it is excellent to be able to control the kids windows and also not having them being able to play with the winders or switches (my 3 year old daughters favourite past time was kicking the window winder to make the window go down).

My windows are all fairly loose and easy to wind, I'd presume a door with new window channel rubbers or that are tight may have more difficulty but mine work very well indeed, I am actually considering putting it on the wifes car too since it works so well and is so easy to install.

I got this kit for around $220 delivered, finding power windows to fit to all 4 doors for that sort of money is a tall order usually, this kit was bought off eBay.

http://www.rapidelectronics.com.au/ is the url to the store that supplies these and other electronics kits.