ELVATO was kind enough to mail me 2 sets of plastic gears. To pay it forward, I took a bunch of pictures while replacing the gears in my 2006 Frod Expedition XLT
Here is a small how to, which will hopefully help someone else on here with this problem.
Some of the pictures were taken as I reinstalled everything, so you will see some red fishing reel grease (which is all I had) on some of the pieces.
Begin by removing the cup holder and the tray to the right of the cup holder by prying with a flat screwdriver then pulling out.
Removing the two pieces should give you enough room to acess the screws you need to remove.
The motor assembly containing the faulty gears is located under/behind the cup holder. 3 screws need to be removed, 2 in the front and one on the side. The side screw is easily accessed through the tray hole. I used a 5/16th ratcheting wrench and was able to get to all the screws with little problems. I would imagine using a non ratcheting wrench would take a while. A small ratchet would be fine too, but a wrench just fits better inside the tight space. Also, make sure you don't drop anything in there or you will make a 5 min job a 1 hr job.
After removing the three vertical scews that hold the white motor assembly inplace., the assembly will need to be pulled straight up, so that the gear rod that sticks out of it clears the opening its in.
Here you can see the hole the gear rod slides into.
An electrical connection will have to be removed as well. This easily clicks in an out.
Next, you will need to use a small flat screw driver to GENTLY pry the clips which hold the case together. Take your time doing this, the last thing you want is to crack a clip. The gears are held in palce with the cover, so breaking any clips may have you needing to find a whole motor assembly. Gentle pressure is all that is needed and once the clips barely clear the notch that holds them, you can slowly work your way around the assembly and remove the whole cover.
This is the motor assembly with the cover removed. The gears which tend to break are the two black gears (one large and one small). In my 2006 expedition, both gears had missing teeth. Make a mental note (or better yet, take a picture) of the gear positioning for when you re-assemble everything. I forgot how it went, but I used a picture I took before I touched anything. Make special note on the position of the beige gear because in order to re-install the motor, that will have to roughly match up to the hole in which it goes into. The rod has grooves which only fit inside the hole a certain way.
Here is a close up of some of the missing teeth.
Both gears removed. The gears just slide out of the metal pins they go mounted on.
I re-greased everything with the only grease I had, high end fishing reel grease. I really don't think it will be any problem. Any grease will do. Make sure you smear a little on any moving parts, including under the beige gear. This will extend the life of all the parts.
Reassembly is in the reverse order.
(picture limit reached, continued on next post)
