Convertible top motors, How to fix. with pictures! Options

[MaskedMan]

Ok so i've been meaning to post this for awhile now, but haven't had the chance till now. Well i've heard a lot of people having problems with thier convertible top opening and closing. And usually the motor is still good, except there is a part inside that is broken. What happened with mine was that one of the sides stopped working and my convertible top needed assistance opening and closing. But the motor was still good, cause it still made noise when i pressed the button. The problem was a pin inside. So if you are having this problem, and your motor still sounds good, then try this, and it may solve your problem...

First you'll need to remove your convertible top motor from which ever side isn't working properly. So first remove the bottom part of the seats, they just pop right out, they are held in by two clips in the front. Then you will need to remove the rear plastic panel on the side your trying to get to. Don't worry bout the seat belts, you can leave those attached, cause you just need to get the panel out of the way. After those are out of your way, You should be able to see the convertible top motors. They are held in by 4 10mm bolts, but you will also need to remove the rear speakers and cut a zip tie before you can unplug the wiring clip and remove the motor. After you remove the motor, you will need to take off 4 hex bolts connecting the motor to a black box that has gears in it. After you take that apart, it should look like this...



Now we can take a look at the problem. There is supposed to be a pin that keeps the gear moving when the motor moves. When this pin breaks, the motor will just keep spinning, but it has nothing left to turn the gear. This pin seems to break off since it happened to both of my motors. Im guessing its like a fail safe device or something, if there's too much stress put on the motor is just breaks the pin, so you dont burn out the motor? Thats my guess. Or maybe the pins just suck. Well anyways, it needed to be replaced. Here's a picture of the Motor with the broken pin removed...



Here's a picture of what was left of the pin...



Here's where your gunna need to improvise cuase i couldn't find a part number for the pin. I ended up cutting drill bits in half and using the solid end as the pin, whatever get's it done right? haha Im guessing you could use any pin as long as it fits in the hole pretty snug. I hope this helps

This post has been edited by MaskedMan: Aug 4, 2006 - 11:56 PM

[MaskedMan]

Yeah, it's really easy to do, and like njccmd2002 said, the hardest part is getting the motors out.

Do you still live in Lakewood, CA like your profile says? I'm in SoCal, so if you need help let me know.

I really gotta get around to updating the pics on the first post .
I'll try to do that this week if it doesn't rain again.

[match220]

Yeah, it's really easy to do, and like njccmd2002 said, the hardest part is getting the motors out.

Do you still live in Lakewood, CA like your profile says? I'm in SoCal, so if you need help let me know.

I really gotta get around to updating the pics on the first post .
I'll try to do that this week if it doesn't rain again.

it's been a long time since I pulled mine out, but I remember it being easy to pull the motors out using my 8mm craftsman ratchetwrench. I thought getting the roll pins out of the motors was the most time consuming. Overall it didn't take very long though. And it's well worth spending the $10 or so on the one wrench just to pull the motors out easily.