Procedure
It’s also worth applying some grease sparingly to the lifting arms as well.
Approx time to perform task: two hours 1) You’ll need to remove the roof panel to begin with. Put the ignition into position 1 and press the UP button for the sunroof to retract the arms to release the roof panel. If you’re unable to do this, see above for manual operation.
Fig 1 2) After removing the roof panel, it’s worth inspecting the gate guides in the roof panel at this point. I found that both gate guides on my car had spilt (Fig 1). The gate guides are the part which the lifting arms slide into to push the roof panel up and pull it back down. These are cheap and easy enough to replace. To replace the gate guides, remove the three screws. Ease the sunroof seal off the roof panel. This allows you to extract the gate guide easier and negates the need to remove all the plastic clips to get access. (Fig 2). Reassemble the new gate guides in reverse order.
8) Replace the access cover and CAREFULLY tighten the self tapping screws up so as not to strip the plastic mount. Fig 3 4) Fig 4 shows the access cover to the lifting mechanism. A word of warning here. Only strip one lifting mechanism down at a time. If you’re fortunate enough that one side of the lifting arms are still working, you can use the working side as a reference point to position the lifting arm after disassembly. (The lifting arm is officially called a ‘Segment’ by Porsche).
10) It’s worth giving the sunroof a check now before reassembling all the headlining. Refit the roof panel and check the sunroof operation. Everything working as it should be? 11) You don’t really need to remove the roof panel again. If you raise the roof panel up you can refit the roof lining, the weather shield and the roof lining cover with the seven screws. Jobs a good un’. Now get yourself a nice brew and admire you’re handiwork (Fig 6).
Fig 4 5) Carefully remove the five self-tapping screws and remove the cover to expose the lifting arm and gear (Fig 5). Be careful these items don’t drop out when you remove the cover. Ease the lifting arm out. You should now be able to remove the white gear cog. The white gear has a washer above and below it. Make sure you keep both of these as you will reuse them again with the new gear.
Fig 2 3) Next we need to remove the interior roof cover and lining. The roof cover is held in place with seven screws. Simply pry off the cover caps and remove the screws (Fig 3). To remove the lining, carefully pull away the weather shield around the rear hatch. Once this has been done, you can gently pull down the lining to allow you access to the mechanism. (My sunroof must have been worked on before at some point. Someone had simply cut the lining neatly to access the mechanism. The roof cover hides this lining anyway so this part was a little bit easier for me).
9) Repeat the process for the other lifting mechanism if necessary.
Fig 6 Fig 7 shows the difference between the new and old broken plastic cog. I was driving around for months, oblivious to the fact that the roof panel was only locked down on the passenger side, causing a chronic creaking noise in the car. Once I’d replaced the plastic gears and gate guides, not only does the sunroof work much better, but the terrible creaking has now gone. Visually, the sunroof panel also seems a much tighter fit when closed now.
Fig 5 6) Meticulously clean the teeth of the lifting arm and the surrounding area from which you have just removed the white gear. I found a large amount of debris left behind from the broken gear. 7) Put plenty of grease on your new gear ensuring you refit the two washers top and bottom. Realign the lifting arm using the working lifting arm for reference.
Fig 7 Thanks to Jim (TR7V8 on the TIPEC forum), Derreck (Zola1 on the TIPEC forum) and Lindsay Brown for additional information, help and advice. Writing & photography by Ben Rodrigues
All Torque 77 page 21