catamount

Argh!!! After getting my car painted in the spring one side of the sunroof sat proud slightly more than 1/8". All along I suspected the arm wasn't installed correctly. Yet the body shop maintained it was the new sunroof seals.

Tonight, I set out to resolve this issue because when removing the roof recently the gear on the opposite side stripped. Grr...

I pulled everything off replaced the stripped gear and reset the bar on the stripped side to equal the passenger side bar. Get everything back in place because it looks good and the sunroof is sitting properly. I lock the car door and low and behold the roof readjusts automatically. Now the driver side sits high by nearly 1/2" WTH?

Get back in the car to fix this issue. Lower the roof to the open position and wham, 2 gears gone.

I go through the whole process again and boom, the passenger gear goes. I replace it then the driver gear goes. That's 5 gears!

That's it, I'm done. In 5 years I have put 8 gears in the damn roof. It's time to go manual.

xsboost90

You can loosen the clutch so that doesn't happen

Yarf

I used this information to repair the sun roof:
http://www.clarks-garage.com/pdf-manual/body-03.pdf
http://www.clarks-garage.com/pdf-manual/elect-18.pdf
http://www.clarks-garage.com/pdf-manual/body-04.pdf

xsboost90

You had the arms set too low, they can't retract without stripping or slipping clutch

gregeast

Once you go manual you never go back.

catamount

Too low wasn't the issue and I've used Clarks Garage in the process. It's almost like the two sides are out of sync which doesn't make sense. Anyway, I've spend more time and money monkeying with the electric roof mechanism than I care to admit. I'm going manual.

BTW, the whole roof mechanism is an engineering joke. It's the one time I look and believe the engineers behind it were idiots. I don't know of another car that has such idiotic issues with their sunroofs.

xsboost90

im not sure why they strayed from the setup in the early cars which just had one gear between the two arm cables, and another cable that went to the motor. This is basically the way the 911's were for thirty years.....

MAGK944

Have to agree with you there but I like the electric feature. There are many small cheap linear actuators out there that will do a better job these days, just need someone creative to make a kit.

I bet the small actuators on my e46 coupe rear windows will do the trick, acting directly on the sunroof arms.

Seems like I may have another project to experiment with

Mangonesailor

Because they are Germans and they often redesign things over and over to impress each other. They may be good thinkers and have good technology, but that stuff has gets old very very quickly.

SpeedyC2

You are welcome to check out the manual conversion I did a few weeks ago. I'm probably bringing the Cayman to First Saturday tomorrow, but the S2 is always open for inspection.

It only took about an hour and seems to work well. The appearance isn't quite "factory perfect", but I'm happy with it.

catamount

Wow is all I can say about conversion kit prices. But first, they are nearly impossible to find!

sparkyman215

They take a bit to find sometimes but well worth it. It is great not feeling like your roof is a ticking time bomb all the time. I did mine about a year and a half ago and it is probably my favorite thing that i have done to date.

I did a quick search on ebay and found these http://www.ebay.com/itm/Porsche-924-...816560&vxp=mtr. They seem a bit expensive, I think I paid $50 for mine about a year ago and that was the going price then. Not sure if prices have gone up but if you need some now here is an option.

docwyte

I've got a set sitting in my garage. I'm waiting for my electric stuff to go bad, then I'll install them. I got them to install the last time things went a little kooky with the roof, but it was just the front microswitch, so I didn't put them in...