1994 W124 Cabriolet - Top Mechanicals Issue

[gdaley]

Well, I'm in a bit of a quandry with my friend's 1994 W124 Cabrio that I'm working on. It developed a leak in one of the fifth-bow cylinders so I removed both, along with the main top cylinders (which, as near as I could tell, need to be removed to access the 5th-bow cylinders) for rebuilding. As luck would have it, we shipped the four of them to Dennis Ficken the day he went on vacation for a couple of weeks. Needing the garage for other projects, I manually walked the top into place, the system obligingly locked down the rear of the top and the tonneau, and the car was weathertight for outdoor storage until Dennis got to the cylinders.

So here's the quandry: the system is being very uncooperative going in the other direction and will not release the rear of the 5th bow or tonneau. It's no surprise that it isn't being very cooperative given that the 5th bow cylinders are still disconnected and uninstalled (I temporarily connected the hydraulic lines to the main cylinders w/o installing them as fluid was spewing from the lines) along with the electrical limit switch (??) attached to the RH bow cylinder. When the switch is actuated, the rear quarter windows retreat an inch or so and the pull-down/locking mechanism for the tonneau and fifth bow gives a brief, downward tug before it faults and stops trying to do anything. The question: is there a way to access the lock mechanisms to release them, either mechanically or or by supplying current to actuate? They appear to reside in the vault-like area between the rear of the passenger compartment and the front of the trunk. Doesn't look like a brute-force situation (what ever really is?). An additional factor to mention is that in the process of removing the cylinders, I unbolted the entire top stack to gain sufficient access to loosen one of the miserable torx fasteners. While I was pretty careful realigning it, I'm concerned that maybe misalignment is causing the issue and jamming the lock mechanism from releasing. That may just be the paranoia of ignorance as to how the whole thing works. Most likely the process is shutting down before the latches are electrically released. At this point, I'm all ears. If anyone thinks this might get more action on the SL board, I'll repost there as well. I know a few guys here know these things pretty well but searching didn't come up with any relevant posts.

As always, thanks in advance :-)