W123 300CD sunroof
 

It worked at one time and has been out of service for the last two years. Now that warm temperatures are here I have pulled the cable and the motor. The motor bench tests o.k. and the cable is intact although it is a sedan cable, not a coupe' cable which is very hard to find. The result is that the roof does not open as much as it should since the sedan cable is longer than it should be.

The seals are new and the slides and cable lubricated with the right Benz grease. My question probably regards alignment. The overhaul instructions state that the roof should slide "easily" when manually operated with the cable out. The roof manually slides full range but takes a a small amount of effort to do so. My engineering sense tells me it feels too high a load on the motor. So, the question, probably directed at those of you who have dis- and re- assembled your sunroof is;

How easy is "easily" ? Is it about say, 10lbs of effort, 1lb of effort or 20lbs of subjective effort?