Sunroof Malfunction, Bowden Cable Flexes @ Drivers Sun Visor

[takasauras]

Hello,

My 22 year old sunroof failed recently, so I decided to replace the lifting block and the sliding block that can be accessed by removing the sunroof. When i reinstalled the motor to the casette and tried to open the sunroof, the cables seemed to have gotten caught somewhere and create a "bulge" where the driver's sun visor is. If one of my cables are not aligned with respect to eachother, how can I align them? I plan on removing the entire casette assembly tomorrow to see what the issue is.

[Ctwide3project]

Ive experienced that cable "bulge" a few times now on different cars, e36's and e46's. Each time it was caused by the sunroof binding on a broken part as it tries to slide. When you get the cassette out, cycle it by hand and watch closely to see if one side is binding.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[takasauras]

Yup, found the driver's side binding while the passenger kept moving. The shuttle's plastic guide on the driver's side was piercing through the gasket (shown in the pic)
Still haven't figured out exactly what is binding but ill get to it. I removed the motor to clean the microswitches because it would never stop at CLOSED. I'll upload pictures of what I discover later.
20200324_163558.jpg

[Ctwide3project]

Yup, found the driver's side binding while the passenger kept moving. The shuttle's plastic guide on the driver's side was piercing through the gasket (shown in the pic)
Still haven't figured out exactly what is binding but ill get to it. I removed the motor to clean the microswitches because it would never stop at CLOSED. I'll upload pictures of what I discover later.
20200324_163558.jpg

The track that controls the tilt motion is a plastic guide, the sunroof panel has a pin on each side that rides in that channel. That's where I have seen the most failures. I'll see if I can dig up a picture of the area im talking about and maybe it'll be helpful

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[Ctwide3project]

I'm struggling to find a picture of the part but I'll keep searching and post it if I find one

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[takasauras]

The track that controls the tilt motion is a plastic guide, the sunroof panel has a pin on each side that rides in that channel. That's where I have seen the most failures. I'll see if I can dig up a picture of the area im talking about and maybe it'll be helpful

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Now its back in the car and working!! So what happened was I created another problem when I re-installed the sunroof and drove the system without aligning the shuttle with the sunroof. When I slid back the shuttle to remove the metal sunroof, I forgot to pull the shuttle back to align the shuttle with the entire assembly. As a result, when I activated the motor, it pushed the shuttle into into the gasket, tearing a hole. After removing the entire casette, I drove the motor manually to observe any bindings. I did not replace any parts, I only realigned the shuttle with the rest of the assembly. The lesson here is the sunroof would have been fully functional if I aligned the shuttle with the metal sunroof by pushing it forward to cover the metal sunroof nuts after replacing lifting and sliding blocks.