Automatic convertible realignment procedure

[Dspill]

that's not good. you either have damaged gears or the lid motor is not fully locked in. DO NOT keep pressing the top bottom if your top or lid stops moving before it should.

have you greased the top mechanism at all? there are a couple of slots on each side that should be greased. in my case my top frame had sheared bolts in those areas. I have pics of the damage on my thread, and also pics of top motors with the top case broken off.

Got it. I was planning to lubricate all the joints this winter, as well as change out the struts/shocks. Fortunately the ragtop days are about over here so I have some time to work on it.

I'm surprised that steel lift bar could be bent by the forces of the lid motor. I can see how that would improve the interference with the body.
Thanks.

[Todd Black 88]

The motors have an enormous amount of torque capability.

[htseng]

Until i figured out the importance of the tension straps to pull the top back slightly, my motors would bend this thrust rod another 20 degrees and I’d have to remove it and straighten in on an anvil. That rod is 3 times the diameter.


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[bradnic]

My cover would not close tight when i got my car. I adjusted bowdens and fiddled with the motors without benefit until i finally took this arm off and put another 5-10 degrees of bend in the direction of the blue arrow. Now it doesn’t touch the car and the cover closes down tight. It seems that the motors can be strong enough to straighten that arm over time.


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There's no reason that link should be bent back to front. more likely your flap lever needs to be moved clockwise a bit. note the comment in my diagrams about 5 degrees from vertical.

Note there are TWO levers for the lid motor. the lid lever and the locking lever. The lid lever is keyed, the locking lever has a rib on it that is caught by the lid lever as it rotates. The S3 and S4 microswitches determine when the levers start and stop. be careful messing with them. If your lid did not fully close, either the locking lever did not rotate far enough, the Bowden cables are adjusted too long, or as a last report the latches need to be repositioned. You can also change the length of that rod, but it's unlikely you would need to do that to the original link. These last two causes are unlikely if the install has never been messed with.

As mentioned the motors have VERY high torque. they can bend the levers severely. sometimes you need to bend them back to shape.

[bradnic]

Until i figured out the importance of the tension straps to pull the top back slightly, my motors would bend this thrust rod another 20 degrees and I’d have to remove it and straighten in on an anvil. That rod is 3 times the diameter.


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great example of how strong the motors are. I picked up a severely bent pull rod from an r3v member a while back which I was unable to reuse. that's why the thrust rod in the pic is new.

here's another example of how strong the motors are - the top of the motor housing is broken here (right in the center of the pic). This is a very common problem that was caused over time by the top frame itself not moving freely, and eventually cracking and separating the attachment point to the top motor housing. THere's no way for the top motor to move the tensioning hoop now, so the top can't move and the lid motor can't engage. Only recourse (until the motor housing is repaired or top motor replaced) is to disconnect the top and lid motors. Most driver quality electric top cars are like this, and have been converted to manual operation.

[bradnic]

@dspill any updates? just saw your PM on bfc :-)

[Dspill]

Hi. I’ve put the car in storage for the winter and haven’t had time to start working through the possible problems. The suspension upgrade and power steering leak have the priority right now. I will share any information as I learn something.
Thanks.

[Dspill]

After a season with a semi-manual top I'm going to try to fix the motor/gear assy to get back to a motorized top. My original problem was a gear stripping sound as the tonneau cover raised. Once the tonneau cover is up, the top motor seems to work fine, although I have to help fold the top due to a lack of elasticity in the top straps which is common.
Has anyone tried to disassemble this tonneau cover motor assy? I am trying to get to that gear which probably requires removing the black bracket. How that bracket comes of isn't clear so before I try more
aggressive measures I'm checking to see if anyone has done it.
The gear you can see in the background is available on eBay so I suspect that may be the gear that's grinding.
To access the gear I need to hinge the two mechanisms apart.
I will document this if it works out. There's not much out there on repairing these automatic tops due to the small number of them sold.

[bradnic]

the tonneau / lid motor is pretty easy to replace and not very expensive - that's the motor that doesn't break :-)
as to gear grinding, check the angled part in the pic above, it's basically a transmission for the lid motor mechanism. I suspect the motor gear is fine.. honestly I've never seen a lid/tonneau motor with the motor attached gear damaged.