Re: Problems closing the top

To all the top specialist and other who may chime in,

Recently, I have had 2 occurrences of the top not aligning properly when attempting to close it. The gap was not enough to twist the clam-shell, but once the car said the roof was in place, I had 1 to 2 inch gap on the driver side not allowing me to clamp it in place.

Both time, retracting the roof and restarting for open position fixed the problem.

I did a bit of reading and found the pelican tech article "Convertible Top Repair", after reading I'm having trouble to guess what components could be failing considering that it is intermittent.

Best guess so far would be my left transmission assembly... ?!?!?

Any comments or troubleshooting method recommended ?

BTW, this is for an 987S - 2005....

Thanks !



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/2014 05:55PM by EricG. (view changes)

I had the same symptoms so check your push rods. They are located on each side of the top mechanism and look like this
Sometimes the plastic tips break only on one side like this [4.bp.blogspot.com]

If so you will have to replace the whole rod or look for the plastic tips on EBay.

Thanks Carlos,

I thought of that, but what puzzles me is if the push rod was broken, why would it still move ! Wouldn't the left side not move at all ?

I'm hoping to dig hands on into it this weekend, I'll check the push rod for sure.

Anyone else have leads on what to look for ?

Thaks,

Eric

Hmmm, looking at the picture, something just hit me !

Could it be that the torx screw used to lock the push rod ajustement be slipping ???? Just enough to cause misalignment it !

I'll have to give that a quick look !

Unlikely but possible. BTW if one push rod is broken your top will still work...awkwardly though

I had a look at my push rods yesterday and both are solid and in good shape.

I noticed that the paint was scraped off around the torx screw I mentioned in my previous post on the side that lags behind. So I thought my assumption was right, but no... the screw was tight, might have come from adjustment in the past...

So I looked at what else could be causing the lag and check all nuts and bolts to be sure they were tight. The main bolt that secure the control lever to the transmission assembly was loose, it needed a quarter turn. The other side was tight. I'm crossing fingers that's all it was...

The bolt secure part E to D in this pelican picture !