Hi all.

The sunroof in my w124 bit the dust a few months ago. Luckily it was stuck in the close position which gave me plenty of time to research and troubleshoot.

I finally came to the conculsion that it was the lift rails so I went to the local bone yard and checked out a few other w124s before finding one with a set of lift rails in good shape.

Yesterday I took my time and replaced both lift rails. Everything seemed to going well but after a couple of open/close tests I noticed that the motor was not stopping when it should. It just kept pushing the cable and ending up forcing the cable out of the cable guide, chewing up some of the plastic beads/guides in the process.

So I ran back over to the boneyard and pulled a new cable, Installed and adjusted it per the service guide and same thing happened.

Anyone out there have any tips?

Thanks!

Sean

Welcome to the forum Sean. Dave M, who goes by GSXR on this forum, has a DIY wiki on sunroof repair and adjustment. He's always very thorough and complete in his descriptions, so you might want to take a look. HTH.

http://www.w124performance.com/images/W124_sunroof/

__________________
1988 California version 260E (W124)
Anthracite Grey/Palomino
Owned since new and still going strong and smooth
MBCA member

Past Mercedes-Benz:
1986 190E Baby Benz
1967 230 Inherited from mom when she downsized
1959 220S Introduced me to the joys of keepin' 'em goin'

There are only 10 kinds of people in the world--those who understand binary and those who don't

Thanks, Cal.

That's actually part of what I studied when I fixed the rails and it was really helpful. It actually made the rail replacement simple.

I'm just stuck on getting the cable adjusted correctly after everything is assembled.

Sean

Try closing the sunroof completely. Nex pull out on the white knob that disconnects the sunroof motor from the drive gear. Run the switch on the overhead so that the motor stops itself, it should NOT be running the cable in/out. When the motor stops, it (should be) hitting the limit switch and stopping in the fully closed position. Now re-engage the drive, and see if the sunroof operates correctly. If it is slightly off, run the motor to the stop again, disconnect the drive, manually run the sunroof to the proper closed position, re-engage.

This has worked for me, I hope that I explained it clearly.

__________________

Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

Thanks, BabyMog.

That sounds like the step I was missing.

I just pulled out the white knob and then lined the notch up with the alignment hole, but I didn't run the motor beforehand.

Thanks again!

Sean

Okay.

I went to the bone yard and got a newish cable.

I put it in and tried the procedure suggested by Babymog and it didn't work. No Matter what I did with the white knob the cable would move the sunroof.

After some trial and error I did the following.

1. With the sunroof in the closed position, disconnected the cable completely.

2. Used the switch to get the cable into the completely open position.

3. Pushed the switch forward to get the cable to go as forward as possible.

4. Went to the trunk, pulled the white knob out and turned it clockwise a few turns, pushed it back in and then used the switch to move it forward a little.

5. Repeated step 4 until the cable was aligned with the closed sunroof.

6. Attached the cable and opened the roof completely.

7. Closed the roof completely.

8. Tried the roof in the up position <--Major fail. Once again the motor pushed the sunroof cable too far and jammed it out of the steel tube.

Any ideas?