OK. I can now describe the system and repair of a rear window shade on a 1989 560 SEL. I hope this will be of use to someone....

First of all, I started this thread because the rear shade was not working, and I could hear the motor make a loud rattling noise when the button was pressed for either up or down. I suspected a broken nylon "rope" (as it is called at the parts dealer) - just as Shaun had suspected and described the repair for in this thread earlier.

I got the new rope and tried to feed it in, only to realize that this was the beginning of the problem, not the fix. I realized the pervious rope must have broken for a reason. So here is how the system works, and how to fix it.

The role of the rope is to extend the shade by pushing it upwards along the metal rail - the actual retraction of the shade is not accomplished by the rope, but by a spring contained in the shade roller. The mechanism had broken because the shade roller had seized. An easy test for this is to pull the shade up along the rail while it is extended - if it retracts as soon as you let go, the mechanism is fine, and your biggest challenge is getting the old rope out. If not, schedule five hours of fun (which you may also need to schedule if the old rope is stuck deep inside the mechanism). The rope itself retracts towards the driver side of the hatshelf into a metal tube underneath the hat shelf. The worm gear is located at the driver's side, facing the passenger side (important to know since this means the teeth of the rope must face towards the driver's side when guiding it back in).

In my case, I had to disassemble everything.

First, remove the guide rail as described by Shaun above. Next, remove the rear seats. It takes about 20 minutes to remove the rear seat cushions - I have the reclining seats, so I had to unbolt the bottom cushion (there are two bolts - one on the left and one on the right), rather than just move a lever. The back seat goes out by removing three bolts from the bottom edge. On both cushions, watch the in-seat heater cables and connectors before you pull out the cushions. Next, remove the upper doorsill molding paralell to the seat edges.

Next, remove the rear pillar covers. This is easier than it seems at first: Remove the single screw on each pillar, then work your hand under each pillar molding and force it away from the pillar. Make sure the pressure is sideways towards the inside of the car and not downwards - you do not want to break the plastic retaining pin to the headliner (I didn't because I was careful). There is no need to unscrew the seatbelt - just slide away the molding and let is hang down.

For the reclining seats, there is a hat shelf molding with a hinged flap all along the length of the seat. It is held in place by six philliphead screws. Remove the screws and lift out the molding.

The manual states you should remove three bolts in the trunk going into the hat shelf - I am not certain they do, but I removed them.

Now the fun starts. If you have rear speakers, you may or may not want to remove the speaker covers. You are supposed to do so by pushing the cover forward from behind into the car and then lifting it out. I did and found one of them so briddle it fell apart as I removed it - the other was just fine. Oh well - one of these go for $120 or so. There is no need to remove the speakers themselves. Anyhow, next you somehow want to cajole the hat shelf corners above the speakers and pull the entire shelf into the car. You may have to cut the wires of the rear windshield brake light - I had to, and later installed nylon quick connectors to prevent this problem in the future. The wires for the sun shade have a plug that is snapped into the back of the sunshade motor -you'll have just enough clearance after pulling the hat shelf out to get to it. I'll continue in the next post on this thread...

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Henry Bofinger
1989 560 SEL (black/black)
2001 Audi TT Roadster (silver/grey)