cabrio top repairs... the shortened cable fix!
 

I am selling a friend's C2 cabrio - and unfortunately, he told me that the top was not working and wanted me to take a look at it, too. Well, after he took it to the dealer, and they gave him an $1800 estimate, I was able to fix his problem for $0.... yes, I saved him $1800. Dang baby!!!

So, what happened? On the driver's side transmission's gearbox, where the cable attaches to the worm gear as seen below, the 4 phillips-head mounting screws had loosened, and the whole assembly twisted itself to the point that the 4 screws that mount it to the backside of the transmission were bent in crazy ways. Upon disassembly, I found that not only the tranny came loose, but the cable seemed way too short for some reason (others have theorized that over its lifespan it shortens...).

The picture below shows the cable end, with the steel cable poking out the end about 1/4". Unfortunately, with this small amount of cable poking out, the motor drive can actually disengage because the cable pops out of its holder, and this would lead to only one side operating the top which is a high risk for strut fracture (which my cabrio suffered from)...

So on to the fix...
 

The metal wire in the middle of the plastic cable can be pulled out entirely. Once it's pulled out, I took wire cutters and chopped out a 10mm section of the plastic tubing. Then I put it back together and fastened it together with 100mph-tape. Now, the cable pokes out plenty on both ends...

Here is what the complete assembly now looks like - ready for reinstallation:

Now here is a neat little trick: in order to properly align the transmission with the other transmission, you need to spin the wire inside the cable until the arm lines up properly. Well, the darn thing is geared such that it takes a LOT of turns... so it dawned on me to hook the wire in the cable up to my busted black-and-decker cordless drill - worked perfectly! I could "drive" the transmission arm until it was properly lined up, and bolt everything back together!

Top fixed! $1800 saved! ;)