Broken 300E sunroof lifter - DIY?
 

Of course this happens as summer begins...one of the lifter arms on my 1989 300E sunroof has broken. The passenger side lifter appears to have failed.

I managed to close the sunroof and haven't dared trying to open it again.

My tech quoted me roughly $150 CDN per lifter (YIKES!) and 3-4 hours labor to do the job. He also recommended replacing both lifters at once, which seems like reasonable advice.

I've done everything from brakes to an inline 6 head job, but never tackled the mysterious inner workings of the Benz sunroof.

The motor, cables, etc. all seem to be fine.

It's a bit pricey for a bloody sunroof, is this a do-able DIYer?

This just happened to me, same problem, I have the parts and ironically mine is being finished tomorrow afternoon. Fix both sides, I went to fix one and then the other side broke and had to do the whole thing over again. Have a good mechanic do the job, if you're not going to do it, theres lots of tiny little peices to work with and they're a complete and utter pain in the ass.
It is a do-able DIY, but find someone to help you. It's tough to go back and forth from the driver side to the passenger side and try and line everything up. Also, make sure you have all the parts you need, I went in for one side and found I needed other stuff and ordering them from my local MB stealership's parts department cost time.

Best of Luck.
Feel free to PM with any quesitons, as I searched and found no help whatsoever. Not saying i'll be a big help, but I'll try.

Ah, sunroofs!

Do a search, the instructions have been posted many times. This isn't a really bad job, the only real problem is getting the roof panel tight enough at the front to open and close correctly.

Plan on at least 5 hours, and do get both lift angles --- if one is bad, the other is going to break very soon.

Peter

I just finished this Job, replaced the angles and everything else in htere, then as I am replacing the panel part of the roof I go to close it and what do I find? A BUSTED CABLE. I am roofless for another few days.

Next car = DropTop. No more sunroofs for me.

Speaking of which, how do you do this? I "fixed" my sunroof a little while ago (okay, a long while ago) without too much fuss, but without that special clamp, I've never been able to get the front adjusted right. Any tips?