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Jim, Thanks for the tip on the springs. And thanks to everyone for the advice, your experience is invaluable to young bucks like myself.
My window issue turned out to be an easy fix. The window track had moved just enough to let the arm fall out when it was fully extended, with the track moved over things seem to be fine.
I think that most products nowadays are engineered to fail after a short time - they call it 'planned obsolescence'. Whenever feasible I prefer to repair original materials.