190E sunroof stuck SHUT

The tilt and slide sunroof on my '88 190E refuses to open, it will neither slide, nor tilt up. (it's in the closed position right now). Activating the switch causes a LITTLE movement (i.e the sunroof wants to tip down so it can slide back), but it encounters some sort of obstacle and won't go any further. Attempts to move it with the hand crank in the trunk have not worked. The motor is fine, and , I assume, so is the cable, since it tries to move.

The service CD assumes that you can open the sunroof to be able to repair it. It does not give me any indication of what I am supposed to do to a stuck SHUT roof! I can't remove the sunroof's headliner when it's closed.

Is there any trick to opening this sunroof so that I can replace what is broken (maybe a lifting angle).

Thanks

Reply to
odb
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Count your blessings, at least it isn't stuck OPEN.

I think the usual failure is the cable, which has plastic beads on it to allow it turn and slide... When the cable gets close to failure, it frays and parts of it protrude from the tube that carries it. This causes jamming.

It could also be that there is in fact something stopping the retraction completely, like a screw that fell into the wrong space...

Do you hear a "clunk" when the roof stops opening? A strong magnet might move something metallic out of the way if necessary.

You are going to have to open the roof to fix this, one way or the other...

If you can open it a crack, you MIGHT be able to pull down the leading edge of the inside sliding roof cover and take a look under there.

Using the hand crank, or assisting the motor with some external hand effort seem like the best bets.

Good Luck, Marty

Reply to
Martin Joseph

Reply to
fred

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