Peter 642

Late 944 typical sunroof problem: arms won't advance to lock the sunroof in place. Removed plastic gears, and they had been stripped.

I read and followed Clark's Garage advice on next steps; apparently so did the last person who changed these gears! I've tried to manually retract the cam that "makes" the mini-switches, and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but it doesn't budge. The nut(s) move all as one (A, B and C on Clark's diagram), but the cam doesn't. In key position 2, same problem if I try the actual sunroof switch; "up" arrow does nothing, "down" arrow causes motor to whine and turn, but no movement of the cam.

The arms and gears themselves are in a bucket while I try to fix the motor.

Seems like it's over-torqued, and that the high torque caused the gears to strip. Great, except I can't loosen the locking bolt that screws the torque adjusting nut, because it looks like it might be loc-tite'd in place, but I'm not sure. Again, they all move together, nuts A, B and C.

Ok, so: Am I likely right: probably loctite is keeping the nuts together, and I need to remove (via heat, I've read, with a solder gun)? Or is there entirely something else with the motor that could be causing the cam to fail? Again, I hear the motor working, but the cam doesn't move and the switches don't change.

Any help would be great. I can supply pics if you need, but Clark's Garage has 'em all too. Looks just like it should.

Thanks.

Richgreenster

When I adjusted my two nuts (that sounded bad)LOL ... I had to fabercate a special ultra thin wrench to hold the back nut while I loosened the front one. I was surprised by how much torque it took but it did come loose and mine did not have any loctite on it. Also when I adjusted it back to the correct torque, it fixed the gear stripping perfectly. I would not use heat on the nuts. I really do not think that you will need it.

Peter 642

Ok; I tried prying. No go. The three nuts are completely locked together.
I've removed the entire sunroof motor, cam and apparatus from the car.

First pic is the motor, second is a close-up on the nuts. You can see the attempts to get them to move have left them scarred. The largest moves the motor gear on the back, while the smallest (on top) should "release" to allow torque to change (middle nut). Right now, it takes tremendous force to move the motor itself, which I suspect is the problem.

I removed the metal cable/cord from the motor housing (third pic) and cleaned it (fourth pic). It looks to me like the cable/cord fits in and, via the motor, makes contact with the sunroof mechanism by pushing in/pulling out (fifth pic).

Here's my question: does any of this need to actually work, if I just want to lock my sunroof tightly closed? Right now, it's open because the locking arms won't move, but I just want them closed, locking the sunroof. Any reason I can't manually "push" the metal cable into the mechanism housing, or via just rotating the motor clockwise? Can I generate enough force to do that?

Thanks.

IGROWL

Have you considered converting the sunroof to manual?

You can find the old manual latches from a 924 on ebay and convert it to manual and that way you can still use it.

Peter 642

Now that is a fantastic idea.
I took a look, and I'd rather keep the electric, but if all else fails I will convert to manual. No latches on eBay right now.

I'm thinking it really is a torque issue; honestly I should be able to simply manually move the stupid cable up/forward, and lock the roof in place. Not sure why that doesn't work....

AM edit: While falling asleep, I realized that the reason why I was staring at two feet of steel cable was because the motor mechanism had fed the cable backwards, into the rear wheel well in the trunk. Without the cable, the plastic gears have absolutely nothing to catch onto, and the two feet of cable should have been fed forward to the gears. So, no way to work without me replacing the cable! Off to fix the sunroof....