What happened to my sunroof?

[Christien]

The 86 is fairly new to me, so I'm not familiar with the sunroof mechanisms. Yesterday while opening it, when it was fully retracted the motor kept going, and now does nothing. I can slide the roof open and closed by hand, but when it's closed it's sagging significantly. The motor still runs - it sounds perfectly normal.

Did a cable break? Or did the panel fall off a track?

Here's a pic:

[schwaggen]

It sounds like the gear on the motor has lost contact with the cables somehow. If you can slide it by hand, then the cables are no longer engaged with the motor (quite impossible to move if so)

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that either:

a. One or both mounting screws for the drive gear motor has come out, allowing it to sag.

b. The gear itself has broken?

c. the rubber "sleeve" that connects the drive gear with the motor has come undone/busted

d. The two pivot screws on the cable "cars" are missing, so the roof isn't connected to the cables (this is a longshot, for both sides to go at once)

The reason your sunroof sags is because the cables have to be under tension forward to drive the aft corners of the sunroof "up" into position, and there's something wrong in back.

If you climb into the rear seat and look up, you will find a zipper hidden in the headliner above the rear window. Unzip it, and there will be 2 fiberboard panels inside lining the roof. They are secured by screws, 4 or 5 of them (too lazy to go look) - undo the crews, and pop the panels out- you have to slide them slightly forward, as they are engaged by a series of metal flanges above the rear windshield.

Once the are out, the sunroof guts are visible- the tubes meeting in the center, the drive gear, and the motor off to the left. At this point, you might ask for a helper to push the sunroof button to see what is going on back there.

The drive gear is secures by two screws are they both there? The gear should be securely nested between the two drive tubes- you should be able to see the spring-like cables through the little cutouts on either side of the gear. Something at this juncture sounds like your problem.

Good luck, let us know what you find. There are several good threads about sunroof function- do a search.

[Christien]

Thanks - that's an excellent breakdown. I did search for the problem, but like you said, there are several threads, and not knowing even where to start, it was too much to sift through. I'll tear into it tonight and see what I find.