David Schiff

first i had a new top installed by Jack Davis at Generation uphol, san jose. I appredciated the advice on other bay areaplaces.
jack has been doing this since he was 13.!! yeah, he is a mom and pop shop and while there i saw the best rolled a pleated seats ive ever seen. he does all the work with his son helping at times. Verna handles the phone and i was very pleased, more expensive than Reseda but closer and He is a quality fellow. His son "knows the tops and the mechanics of them" and that was of help as even though i had the latching motor recall the gears in the pass. side were stripped.
it took 1.5 days, the german top looks great, and he got the latching motors and installed them, and i took the failed one apart to see what gives. gently pry the housing apart, found a piece of bronze in the white grease. this gear is brass/bronze that has a hypoid type pitch that meshes with a steel gear that is driven by the motor off its worm gear. the limit switch , green and orange wire into the gear case is controlled by a cam that makes/breaks the circuit. using a small metic allen[i dont know how small, about 1.5-2.5mm [cant read the numbers]. the cam can be lifted up the shaft that looks splined but it is not a true spline, its a friction fit. note carefull the mark on the shaft where the allen screw for thecam indented it, you need to replace the cam exactly. You then drive or press the shaft out the back of the casing and if in your case the gear has a bad tooth, rotate the gear so the good teeth mesh throughout the rotational arc and press it on again. I used a vise with a large socket as a mandrel to spare the shaft and repress the gear on the shaft. I put the limit switch back on and set the cam so it activated the switch at the extremes of gear rotation, bad teeth no longer mesh since the rotation is less that 360deg.
my latching motors where less than 2 yrs old, coverd by warranty if examined by a dealer but i didint want to do that
I plan to go completely manual, the lift is disconnected and it seems that the 6-7mm shaft that rotates the wheel into the header can be connected to handles. Thats next. I have no relation to Jack davis etc blah blah. BUT, he is going to do my rear seat delete and i bet it wont weigh 40lbs.!
Thanks to all.
DavidSchiff

David Schiff

i forgot, Generations Upholstery phone number is 408 2132263, no affiliation etc.
david schiff

chet

On a nice day about a week and a half ago, I decided to put the top down. I could hear the motors spin, but the top didn't unlatch. I wasn't too upset at first because I had heard of the top latching motor recall, and just assumed it had never been done on my car (I've owned it since 10/05). When I called my local dealer to find out whether it had been done, I was surprised to hear that they replaced the motors under the recall in March 2005. Less than two years since they changed them, and one has broken. And on top of that, the manufacturer's two year warranty doesn't apply since the motors weren't purchased, they were put in free under the recall. Sunset would sell me one for about $470, but I remembered reading a thread where someone was able to reset the gear so that the broken tooth was outside of the range of travel. Thanks a million David, or at least thanks $470 worth.
PS I would have given up on trying to get that cam off if I didn't know that what appeared to just be a little round hole was actually a #2 allen.

Stevarino

Same thing happened to me as well. Guadin Porsche replaced the motors and the pins in my car. I think the bill was $600-800 for everything. I didn't have a lick of trouble with the top until Rusnak replaced the motors in 2005.

24FPS

fwiw guys the only motors worth a poop are the original bosch ones... the newer ones made in belgium are what the dealer has replaced them with when doing the top-recall.

just a heads-up as i have heard the belgium made ones have a tendency to burn out.

i get the feeling this was planned....

David Schiff

thanks chet, i didint know what number allen, cant see that without a microscope or my surgical loups. I have been thinkgin of goin total manual with handles brazed to the shaft, love the car, hate the expensive efforts to make it difficult. but im addicted to the symphony over 3 grand
david schiff.