3 inches makes all the difference

So today it was time to fix the electric sunroof mechanism.

I had the new gears from Porsche, a few hours to kill with no distractions. Removing the trim inside went OK, one screw was a bit tough but came out in the end. I pulled apart the sections where the sunroof arms come out from and removed the old gears.

As suspected they had stripped fairly badly and were past their best. While they were off I had a look further in and was slightly concerned. The geared wire which runs from the motor to the gears wasn't there.

I stripped down the boot to get at the motor. Porsche in their wisdom decided to make this face the rear panel so more nuts had to be removed to reveal the motor. Here I found approximately 5 feet of the wire where the motor had pushed it all out. A quick wipe down and grease and I tried to push it back in, no joy.

As the motor wasn't running it would feed through, but luckily 2 small nuts held the cable sheath in place, so with them off I could push the cable through. A quick check to ensure that it had gone all the way through, and move the trailing arm so hat the required 30cm of wire was free and I was good to put it all back together.

This took about another 30 minutes but went smoothly. Now for the big test, would the arms raise?

I pressed the button and....nothing. I couldn't see a switch but suspected that those craft Germans had put something in so that it won't work without the sunroof back in. So I put it back in.

This time it worked a treat, and nice smooth motion with no grinding and the motor itself was quieter than I thought. The only disappointment was that the rear of the roof only lifts about 3 inches, though this does seem to be as designed, I guess that is why it comes out fully.

I started looking at the doors then, but I'll save that for a different post.

With the three inch gap I can now open on demand, and the ability to remove the whole sunroof I'm ready for summer (and the trip to Le Mans that is going to be my reward for finishing all this).

All in all I'm pleased with today's work, and who would have thought you could be proud of 3 inches :-)

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