Once you have the hat shelf out of the car, the construction becomes easy to understand. You remove the four nuts attaching the shade mechanism to the shelf. The hat shelf is made of a flimsy combination of plastic and particle board - the shade mechanism is made of finely machined metal.

I had to remove the roller by bending one of the retainers out of the way. Be careful not to harm the shade on the sharp metal edges of the holder. Then I removed the spring loaded mechanism and reworked it with a combination of WD40 and 3-in-1 oil. I also had to remove the motor and the plastic mechanism cover to get out the rope that had broken in three different locations.

On reassembly of the mechanism, and this is important unless you want to take the hat shelf out again after the fix, make sure you give the mechanism enough tension to retract the shade, but not too much to make it hard for the rope to force it to extend. Forget about installing the rope until the hat shelf is back in place.

When reinstalling the hat shelf, make sure the left and the right corner clips are visible above the hat shelf through the rear windshield.

When all is said and done, and the seats are back in place, have an assistant (or fiancee, as in my case) push the up/down button as you feed in the rope. When feeding in the rope, do the following (and this will save you a lot of heartache):

1. the teeth face the driver's side of the car
2. the portion of the rope with no teeth is the top of the rope and goes into the shade
3. you'll need to feed it twice - the first time you'll need to retract the rope all the way, see how much is sticking out, get the rope out again, and cut the same length off the inside end
4. the rope will give you a hard time while going in - create a strong curve in the first three inches of the rope towards the driver's side, using needle nose pliers
5. for the same problem, the inside end of the rope will need to be cut with a slant to make it clear the first curve of the tube

Last but not least, reinstall the the guide rail.

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