I followed a very old thread, and youtube videos for installing new cables and locking mechanism on the sunroof portion of the top. Everything seemed easy enough to follow however the slide isn't sliding as it should.... it is extremely hard to move on the rails and when reconnecting it to the motor it slips due to the resistance. I do not want to damage the motor so I stopped trying. It can be manually cranked, with a lot of force though. We removed the cables, cleaned the tracks, put a bit of white lithium grease in the track and its still the exact same. What are we doing wrong??? Now my local garage wont work on it because we bought the parts ourselves and it seems like no one is active anymore who can help..... I guess i just want to know if the resistance on the track is normal and maybe there is more wrong elsewhere, or if its something with how the mechanism is lined up possibly? Just desperate for new ideas.

 

If it's installed right the motor should move smoothly, I would pull out that motor and install the cords and see if it binds. The motor might be binding or the cables inside the tubes. The track should be cleaned and the regreased.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...tible-top.html

 

Thank you very much for responding. That is the post we followed as well as his videos which are very detailed and helped tremendously. When the motor is out the cables do move on the track, however it is extremely difficult to move them. Since the cables are fed through a tube there's no way to get in to lubricate them. Did you feed in relatively easily though so it feels more like the trouble is with the mechanism and not the cables. Is there anything else we should be looking at or possibly something else going wrong? He talks nothing about greasing the rails or cable, should we try to grease the cable before putting it in? Just trying to think of what could possibly be going on.
Motor in - motor grinds and cannot pull the cable unless we help push the sunroof to open/ close. Can manually crank to open/ close but very hard to turn.
Motor out and cloth off - mechanism moves but extremely stiff. Tracks are clean and slightly greased.

 

Welcome.

Yes, they should be smooth. I bet the tracks need to be cleaned in the rails. Or you don't have the cable adjustable ends inserted into the rail correctly. You might need to take a toothbrush or a pipe cleaner and clean the whole rail system. Then lightly re-grease it with a sunroof grease. The rails tend to collect dirt and gunk on the grease over time.

I regreased mine and cleaned them as I have a boat load of miles on my R52.

Once the cables are fine i would inspect the motor and make sure it turns, it might be jammed or damaged. It should be tight but not super tight. You can plug the motor in and unbolt it and let it run to see if its the problem.

 

Hmm, we did use a toothbrush and tracks looked like new but i'm wishing I could get into the tube the cables are in. I think i'll try the pipe cleaner like you mentioned. Also we haven't pulled the cables all the way back out yet so will give that a try and inspect them and check the motor.
Did you grease your cables also or just the rails?
No trick to inserting the cables into the rails right, just feed them in until they pass the motor mount?
Thanks for the suggestions, it at least gives us a place to start!

 

Light grease on both. You can grease the part of the rails where the front black mechanism slides a little heavier. I did both. Long pipe cleaner helps clean. No trick, just feed them in.