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Trying to troubleshoot the sunroof on my new-to-me 968. I started off just buying new gears and installing them as that seems to be the typical issue with these cars. But upon installing them and operating the sunroof one of the gears was stripped away. I then started to play with the sunroof and noticed that in ignition switch 1 the rocker sometimes works and sometimes does not. It tries to move but doesn't and other times works. When moving to ignition 2 and then opening/closing the sunroof I noticed that the drive cable would shoot all the way out (in the trunk area, picture attached) and this would throw off where the cable would be. The other gear (the one further away from the motor on the passenger side) didn't operate at all because the drive cable didn't reach. I then rewound it using a socket and tried again with similar results. Sometimes the cable shoots all the way out. Also, no real movement in Ignition 1. Finally, I noticed that the tube that holds the drive cable in the trunk has a slight kink in it (pic attached).
I believe that what happened to my gear was that upon installing everything the cable shot out the back and then was misaligned in its position. When I went to ignition switch 1 and operated the rocker there was too much cable and this pulled the teeth off the gear. The other gear wasn't harmed because there was no cable going through it.
So, what would be the best way to go about fixing this? I don't want to just throw parts at this.
This is the drive cable all the way out the back:
Tube has a slight kink in it but not very noticeable and may not an issue at all:
Having owned a 944 or 968 continuously since about 1992 my recommendation is to fix it well enough to get it to close securely, then just get in the habit of warning/threatening your passengers to never touch the switch. The sunroof mechanism is a terrible and failure-prone design.
One very important component of fixing the sunroof is to readjust the clutch every time you service it. For some reason the clutch tends to become more fixed as time goes on. This "fixed" state is what ruins gears (obviously among other things).
Once you have your arms, gears, switches, cables in place, adjust the clutch until it's too loose to engage, then slowly keep tightening until the system works as advertised. Did this with the '89 and everything works perfect. No fear of engaging anything now.
Clarks Garage has a great write up on the sunroof operation and trouble shooting. Just went through this on a friends 968.
Good luck and i agree with vandal968, stopped using mine years ago.
In my case, I removed both gears and actuator arms and re-indexed them relative to the drive cable. This just involves feeding the cable back into the tube, and running the motor until the cam is in the "fully lifted" position, with limit switch III depressed. The motor should stop at this point. (If not, investigate limit switch III...)
Then I re-install the lifting arms and the gears in the "fully lifted" position. Make sure they're even on both sides, and button everything up.
Then use the sunroof switch (or the manual crank) to slowly start lowering the arms... make sure they stop in the "locked" "position 2" as seen on Clarks, if not, adjust limit switches I and II until they're making good contact with the cam. Once that's working, use a little Loctite on the limit switch position adjustment screw so it doesn't back out and let the switches slip.
At that point, you should adjust the clutch... but honestly even with the clutch carefully adjusted I've found that slippage can vary quite a bit with temperature, and it's always safest to use extreme care when setting the sunroof to the "released" position. This means keeping an eye on the lifter arms letting go of the sunroof switch before the cam has a chance to slip (or strip).
I doubt the kink in the guide tube is a problem... I assume the drive cable makes tighter twists and turns on its way to the gears / actuator arms. A fresh coat of grease probably can't hurt.
Just for reference, I'd also observe that anyone with an intact cam who finds the cable coming out of the motor almost definitely has broken drive gears, since the interference from the lifting arms + slippage of the motor clutch normally prevents this from happening... the cable could only get that far if it's sliding past stripped gears.
It's frustrating, but as finicky as the system is there's a (twisted) logic to it, and if you're persistent you'll be rewarded with a sunroof that tilts a few glorious inches.
Not looking forward to tackling this again but will get to work. Have to order another gear but will buy a couple just in case. Funny how the smallest things cause the most frustration.
After a couple of days trying to fix the roof I concede defeat. For some reason the switch stopped working in ignition position 1 (to release the sunroof) and now the sunroof limit switch does not shut off when in ignition position 2 and operating the rocker to close the roof. The cable just shoots out the back and no matter what I do I cannot get the motor to stop at any point. Maybe both micro switches are shot. Maybe something is stripped. All I know is I gave it my best and the sunroof won. Off to the mechanic in a few weeks.
01-14-2018, 11:56 AM
Another Sunroof Problem/Question
