Replacing a power window regulator 2005 E-350

[Lilnuts2]

This is one of the few threads that I didn't bother to read....until yesterday when my driver window made a "thump" noise as I rolled it up. I touched the "down" button to see if was just a freak noise and it fell into the depths of the door. Removing the door panel is easy, the rivets kinda suck but it's not that tough to get apart. I took mine apart to understand what failed.
How these power windows work, there are two cables mounted on a common spool that is turned by the motor. When the window is going up for example it's being pulled up by the "up" cable and the pull down cable is reeling out at the same time. The reverse happens when you hit the down button. In my case the end of the "up" cable had become frayed and was interfering with the cable windings and allowed them to jump off the reel, which in turn made the window plummet. Nothing was broken, just that one section of cable caused the system to fail.

The regulator and motor was $78. shipped to my door, instead of rivets I used short bolts and nylok nuts, the install was only 30 minutes.

The glass suction cups I have are 8" and would not "suck up" to the curved window glass. I would imagine a 4" would be needed.
As JWA said, don't leave the wood blocks in the window! I used a 2"X 2" and it worked great.

[JWA]

The suction cups I use are designed specifically for curved glass so that's an important feature for this sort of task. They are about 6" OD and have a pump on the handle making them easier to affix. Here's the industry leader: https://www.aegistools.com/product/glasshandler Pricey but the creative type can find a lot of uses for tools like this.

A bit of Gorilla tape attached to the glass and the door shell works well too---can't leave that inside the door!