jhenkel

The sunroof on my car would not operate and I had assumed that it was the plastic gears since I could hear the motor operate when I use the switch. Upon investigation,

I discovered that the cable running from the motor in the back to the sunroof gear assemblies in the roof is damaged.

It looks like the cable is sheathed with a two-part sheath right where it connects to the motor assembly. The two parts of the sheath were originally crimped together but they have now pulled apart. If I hold them together with my hands while someone else operates the sunroof, everything works great.

Can anyone think of any way I can repair the cable, and get the two parts crimped back together? I was thinking maybe two hose clamps and a length of pipe strap?

Seems like alot of work to replace the cable (and $$$) if I can repair it.

Thoughts?

Cory9584

i have a spare cable if your interested

Burma Shave

Mine has the same problem. Looks like a major pain to fix. I'm converting to manual, bought the parts on ebay.

Cory9584

thats what i just did. manual is the way to go

xsboost90

not sure how its broken but a piece of rubber hose and some zip ties seem to fix everything else!

jhenkel

Rubber hose, now that's an idea I had not considered. Sounds very promising, thanks!

Cory, Thanks for the offer but I'd much rather try to fix it first.

Manual operation? How does that work exactly? Where would I find parts to do that? Was it difficult?

Burma Shave

I picked up a manual roof on ebay to get the parts. Paid like 25 bucks. There is a write up on rennlist if you do a search.

87944turbo

+1

JonF

Wanted to reply to this old thread as I was having the same issue and solved it with $10-$15 of parts and 20 minutes.

My sunroof motor tube housing was pulling itself out of the connection joint and the sunroof wouldn't life, but the motor operated OK.

I bought a small section of vacuum line with an inner diameter that closely matched the cable housing. I also bought some 1/2" heater hose.

The hoses need to have one side cut length-wise so they can be slipped over the sunroof cable housings.

Make sure the cable house with fully retracted into the connection at the motor. I then unbolted my motor assembly for ease of access. Cut and slide sections of the vacuum line over the smaller diameter housing. (see pic) Then slip the heat hose over the vacuum hose and connection housing (see pic)

Finally, take 4-5 hose clamps and clamp the hoses to the cable housing snug.

Now you have the same luck I had, your sunroof should operate normally again!

Scottie_Melancon

I had the same issue when I purchased the car. I went with the hose fix, but it only lasted about 1 year. The friction connection eventually failed and the conduit slipped out. I came up with a different fix using 8MM cable clamps and fabricated a plate connector out of a small piece of angle i had laying around. Works great so far.

Broken OEM cable conduit splice

5/8" or 8MM Stainless Steel cable clamp. Purchased on Amazon. Perfect fit for the conduit.

Small piece of alum angle i had laying around. I'm sure any flat piece of metal would work, but the angle does provide much more rigidity.

Assemble splice

Make sure not to over tighten the clamp or it will squeeze the conduit and bind the cable.

zquirp

I know this is an old thread, but this little hack worked like a charm!