Alternative window motors

Lotus Excel window motor replacement

Late model Excels (VIN D2733 onwards) use a Bosch style window motor which is also used on the Esprit. These are hard to find, but a good replacement is a Brose motor from a Land Rover Discovery Series 1.


If you want to use these on an earlier car, you'll need to get the regulator and mounting plate from a later car as the motor mounts and gearing are different.
Brose window motors
Brose motors

The "towers" that give the clearance between the gear head and the mounting point are shorter on the Brose motors, so some packing is required, but the gearing itself is good and the motors seems to have more torque so work much better on Lotus.

If you can find the version with bullet connectors, they'll plug straight into the Lotus loom without modification.

In practice - (several years of use now) packing the mounts with soft M8 washers (one each is probably enough) which deform to fill in gaps, when the mounting bolts are tightened, seems to have done the job. Of course, machining a proper spacer would be a more professional solution.

The geometry of the mounting points is identical, and so is the driving gear itself.

Old motor vs. new
Original motor (left) vs Brose (right). Note the difference in tower height.
Old motor vs. new from above.
Old motor gearhead vs. new. Mounting geometry is identical. Nylon anti-friction button is missing from the new - just swap it over (and cut it down a little)

Part numbers are Brose p/n 680-155806-000 (passenger side), 680-155807-000 (driver's side)

For more information about how to remove the motors, see the Window Frames page.