93 mb 300ce cabriolet: hard soft/top problems!!!!
 

hello, I am purchasing a euro 1993 mercedes benz 300ce cabriolet with a factory hardtop(I know that some say that a hardtop on this model must be aftermarket but I'm sure it is factory because it has mercedes benz badging). Anyway, when I took off the hard top to see the soft top, the soft top was inoperable. The only thing that looked out of place were the two flaps on either side of the tonneu cover, they were popped up and unattatched from the top mechanism(I know that these were supposed to be down and attached on models with no hard top but the hardtop attatches under these flaps so they had to be popped up even though the top was down). I tried to reattatch the flaps to this nipple-like attachment but they wouldn't go. The hardtop attatches to the car in 5 different places(2 on top of the front windshield, 2 under the flaps on either side of the tonneu cover and 1 in the middle of the tonneu cover towards the rear of the vehicle). Also when I pushed the red button for the top operation(located on the dash) the button would flash and beep and you could hear the top trying to raise but the tonneu cover seemed to prevent it from raising. Im thinking that when you go from hard top to soft top there must be some kind of adjustment in between this procedure that I am just not aware of. Another thing, I looked at the owners manual(which was all in german beacuse its a euro model) and it depicted a lever located behind the rear seat seatbacks that had to do something with the convertible top operation(I dont know what because it was all in german). The person who is seling this car is not very farmiliar with it so I am looking for advice asap. anyone please help me anyway you can. thank you!

owners manual...
 

The operation you describe from the owners manual sounds like the emergency operation of the softtop in case of failure. My 95 cabrio came with a standard owners manual along with a supplement for the cabrio.

If you give me an email address I can send you an Adobe of the important pages.

About the hardtop I have never heard of one, original or aftermarket. If it is a genuine Mercedes product it should have a part number somewhere, most likely starting with 124- i'd love to have the number..

E-class (A124) Cabrio Hard Top Option
 

The 124-series E-class Cabriolet (A124) could be factory ordered with a Hardtop roof which was manufactured by an independent supplier backed by Mercedes-Benz (M.B. stresses in its parts catalog that the roof is supplied by an independent supplier on this part especifically).

You can also order the roof separately from M.B. after you purchased the cabrio.

The M.B. part numbers are:

B6 781 1032 Painted in optional Metallic Paint.

B6 781 1030 Only with primer

B6 781 1031 Painted in standard non-metallic color.

Here is a picture of the hardtop roof: