My 240 D has a sunroof, in fact the car is almost fully loaded. My problem, and I've been ignoring it for awhile, is how to open the sunroof and remove it for repair with a broken or non existent cabe? There is nothing there to even hand crank!

If it's like the 124/201, you can lift the door in the headliner enough to see the cable end, disconnect it, and run the carriage back by hand enough to disconnect the headliner and slide it out of the way.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

Thanks, I'll try this. It would be nice to have the sunroof working! Even if it is going to be 115* in the shade!

what about 126, mine has the same problem

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1981 300SD 512k OM603

If the sunroof is a tilt and retract one, the repair itself is more complex. But, the way to get to the connection to the cable should be the same. The sunroof head liner is only attached to the sunroof panel at the leading edge. You take a knife or plastic tool and insert it between the head liner and the sunroof, and pry slightly. It will pop the little spring like holder out of the hole it is snapped into in the sunroof panel leading edge. There are several of these across the leading edge, something like 4 to 6 of them. Once they are all out, you have to either slide the head liner panel back far enough to be able to get your head up under the sunroof panel with a flash light and look for the cable connection at rear end, along the center. It connects to an athwartships bar that when pulled backwards on a non tilting sunroof, unlocks the roof and drops it down onto the slide rails.

Normally the bent sheet metal connector that grabs the head of the cable and then screws down onto that bar gets loose and then the use of the sunroof bends it enough that after a few cycles it breaks off. When this is the case you manually knock the bar down by pushing it aft and then push the whole sunroof panel back. Once the panel is about half way back you pull the headliner section that was attached to it forward and then kind of feed it out through the hole in the roof in the upward direction. You will see the hole in the outer roof is wider than the head liner and it comes out nicely.

If you can't manage the manual unlocking and sliding maneuver you can pull the headliner section downward. The leading edge is reinforced with a half inch or so wide spring steel strip less than 1/16" thick. You can bow this inward at the center until the outer edges of the panel slip into the car, and then remove the panel that way. There is a chance you can, if you are rough, yield the spring steel reinforcement, so that it is permanently bent. This is not the end of the world since it is held in place by those pop-in fasteners and unless you really mutilate it they will hold it reasonably flat. Just remember to put it in through the top when reassembling it.

The cable is most likely extended beyond the threads on the end that engages the drive. When it broke the sheet metal clip, and you pushed the closed button it is likely you let it go too far. Just push it back into its tube and see if you can push the switch to open and have it re-thread itself. It should do this.

Then replace the sheetmetal clip. It is under a dollar on the older 190's without a tilting function. Never fixed one of these with the tilting feature.

If the motor doesn't work when you push the switch you may have a blown fuse and/or several other broken parts. Do a search on the sunroof motor and clutch.

Good luck, Jim

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Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)