Convertible Top 03 S

[Juliof16c]

I can't find my original post so I'll make a new one. My top and become misaligned about 8 months ago when I was changing the oil and filters. The white plastic cap broke when it was moving and twisted it. I couldn't open it properly but I could get it up ok but it still had the warning light on. I. figured if I worked at readjusting all the adjustments it would be ok. Wrong. The motor was running intermittently fine and not so fine. Then the transmission started making noise. It took me a while to figure out where the noise was coming from. So reading on the web someone said it sounds like a broken gear. Ok, I bought one, just in case, and endeavored to take the passenger transmission out. Came out fairly easily but once I saw it the white plastic gear was indeed split in half. That accounted for it working sometimes. then hit a broken part and quit. So took the tranny part and it has 5 gears, 4 metal and one plastic. Obviously the plastic one it designed to fail as not to screw up t he other 4. Well, I took it all apart and cleaned it for a regressing. Huge mistake. The gears, apparently, don't wear like other gears that are in constant turning motion. These just go a little ways back and forth. Thusly they wear differently than the other gears on the same wheel. So trying to get the 4 gears to be on the proper tooth so the posts line up was next to impossible. What I had to do was get it close then change two gears just one tooth. Then try it again. Then the next two gears just one tooth. Finally I magically got the right teeth and the poster slipped right in and I put it all back together. I got another gear for. the other side since when this one quieted down then I could hear the other one. Now hit works great, folds up and down, no warning lights and no gear grinding. But no one mentioned the odd wear of those gears and having to match them back up to get the poster to align. So I saved about 41,00, not including labor which would have been horrendous. And it cost me about $250 instead. Much better.

[CarGuyNeil]

I guess you need to mark the gears before removal so that you can reinstall them properly without going through the lengthy process that you had to use. Good information. Thanks for sharing. Next time snap a few pics along the way to help others and maybe yourself. Sometime that helps during reassembly.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[Juliof16c]

I finally got it fixed. I read about the transmission gears might be worn or broken. I heard some cracking sounds as it moved jerkily then smoothly up or down. Right was worst. So took out the transmission and took the cover off and saw right away the plastic gear was cracked in half. Only metal interior holding it together. Ordered a new one, put it in. Took the old transmission apart and tried to reinstall it. Now the trouble started. I didn't keep track of which gear went where nor the position ( teeth) were connected. The cap has 4 posts that fit inside the 4 gears and hold them in position. The plastic one connects to another side part. But I could only get three posts to line up. Finally, I realized that the gears don't go around continuously like normal gears, they go back and forth. Thus wear differently. What I ended up doing was get the three posts close then take two diagonal gears out and shift them one tooth. Try a again. After several attempts I happened onto the proper alignment and the 4 posts dropped in. Put it all together and worked great. But since it was quiet I could barely hear the driver side crunching a little. Replaced that one but this time I cleaned each gear by itself and kept track of the position it was in relative to the other gears. Went right back together and now, after months, works perfectly. I wanted to write this to let the bros know about this because it has never been mentioned by anyone before. Now I'll try load some photos.