Bent V Lever?

[GRS from Kzoo]

With the great help from this board, I've just changed the top cables on my '98 with 55,000 miles, and the installation job went very smoothly. I did notice that all of the screws which held the cables in place on the transmissions were very loose, but I could not see any damage from that and the new cables went in nicely. Still a few more steps (like timing with the bubble level) to go but I'd like a little input on something I noticed that I have not seen on the past postings.

First a little background. My problem started a couple of weeks ago when trying to put the top back up, and noticing in the mirror that the right side was higher than the left. I stopped it immediately and reversed, but could not get it all the way back down. The first thing I noticed was that the adjusting screw on the leading edge of the clamshell, passenger side, was very loose, but adjusting and tightening it had no effect. I disconnected the rods from the V levers to close the top (at least the car was in my garage), but the clamshell will still not close so it is probably "tweaked". I'll take care of that (with the two-man in-car bending technique) once I get some opinions on the V Levers in my car.

As I was re-installing the V lever on the driver's side, I noted that the upper ball joint on it appeared to be further from its large plastic bushing than the V lever on the right. It looks like the left lever is actually bent inboard about a half inch from the bushing. I've tried to attach a comparison image. (I'm not sure I am doing this properly).

1) Has anybody seen this before?

2) Should I go ahead and place an order for the improved levers and rods from Paragon?

3) If I do get them, is it safe to presume that adjustment of the ball ends could be accomplished by matching the old parts?

Again, thanks for the help thus far. This site is a tremendous help!

GRS

[Chris_in_NH]

i'm not understanding this completely.

- you installed new cables. presumably something happened with the old cables, so the timing on the transmissions may be off to begin with, correct?

- "when trying to put the top back up, and noticing in the mirror that the right side was higher than the left" - are you talking about the conv top or the clamshell?

- "I stopped it immediately and reversed, but could not get it all the way back down" - again, conv top or clamshell?

- "The first thing I noticed was that the adjusting screw on the leading edge of the clamshell, passenger side, was very loose, but adjusting and tightening it had no effect" - do you mean the nut for where the clamshell attaches to and slides along its rail?

- "As I was re-installing the V lever on the driver's side, I noted that the upper ball joint on it appeared to be further from its large plastic bushing than the V lever on the right." - which large plastic bushing are you referring to?

i'm afraid i'm completely lost on this one. maybe your picture will help if you can get it posted. but my thoughts on this are that your transmissions may be out of sync with each other which is why one side of the conv top (or clamshell) raises higher than the other. this can be fixed by syncing them up. if your V-lever is bent and can't connect to either the conv top push rods (has a red or white ball socket on the end) or the clamshell push rods (looks like a black canister) then you'll either need to bend it back somehow (a vise maybe?) or buy a new one.

to post a picture, the picture must first be hosted somewhere - meaning you can get to it by typing a web address. copy that web address, or better yet - right click on the picture and select 'Copy Image Location' from the list. this will copy the address into memory. at the top of the text box where you type your Renntech message, there are little buttons. one looks like a picture with a sun coming up (7th button from the left). click it and then right-click inside the box and select Paste. your picture address that you copied should then be seen in the box. press the Preview Message button below to see if your picture shows up in your message. if it does, click Post Message.

[Tool Pants]

The V-lever is supposed to be flat. You can see in the picture that the top V-lever is bent. In fact, I think the bottom one was also bent but not as much.

[GRS from Kzoo]

Thanks for the responses and sorry for the confusion. I was attempting to fill in the background after I already mentioned the status of the repair. I'll attempt to fill in the blanks and apologize if this gets too long-winded.

I changed the cables after reading (on this site and others) about the certainty of the need to replace them on a 1998 Boxster. When I replaced the old cables, they were not broken but the cable jackets had definitely "stretched" with about 1/4 inch of cable on the motor end of the passenger side and 3/8 inch on the driver side, so it is possible that the timing slipped a tooth if the cable pulled out of the motor drive. I am not certain that the timing was off when the incident occured as the levers appeared to be in exactly the same positions dimensionally, but figure it must be now that I have changed the cables and I do plan to use the bubble level to get it right as I complete the repair.

At the point of failure from the driver's seat and looking in the rear view mirror, all I could see is the top itself, not the clamshell. Since I had backed into the garage and the engine was still running, all I heard was the rumble of the idle. I did not hear any pops or noises that would have caused me to respond more quickly. Up until this incident I never had anything go wrong with the top and I have owned the car since it was new. When I got out of the car, the clamshell was still up, but higher on the left side than the right even though the canvas top had retracted:

I can't honestly recall how low I was able to get the clamshell via the motor, but it would not go all the way down. Looking for what went wrong, the first thing I had noticed was that the lock nut on the screw shown here (right side) was very loose:

Adjusting and tightening that screw had no effect on getting the clamshell down (heck, it seems to adjust the leading edge only about 2-3 mm with the clamshell is fully down) so I checked over at PPBB, which led me to the owner's manual procedure to disconnect the lever arms. Doing that, the clamshell would still not retract completely, staying 1 to 1.5 inches high on the driver's side. (That's why I concluded it is twisted). There is also a very small 'ding' in the clamshell on the left side which was definitely not there before and could have resulted from the twisting.

I started the repairs yesterday with the cable replacement. The upper lever ball stud on the left side was visibly further from the large (~7 inch) plastic bushing (the one which holds down the spongy plastic insulation around the transmission) than that on the right side. Here is the photo I attempted to upload yesterday (thanks for the attachment instructions):

Apparently, this has been seen before (thanks, Toolpants). I think I could probably get the pushrod re-connected despite the bent lever, but I wonder how much the bend affects the timing. I am guessing that the lever must be replaced or repaired before I go any further. Is this a good assumption, or has anybody attempted successfully to straighten one out?

I am curious as to what the group thinks the sequence of the failure could have been. Besides two stretched cables and a bent lever, I found exceptionally loose fasteners at the aforementioned adjustement as well as the 4 phillips screws on each side which hold the worm and gear in place on the transmissions. Really loose, I'm talking 1/2 to one turn from finger tight! The three 13 mm flanged nuts which hold the transmissions in place were also very easy to back off. (I've reassembled the loose fasteners with 242 Loctite). I know that the cables are a known problem, but there were enough additional issues to make me wonder whether I need to be lubricating the slides at least once a year. I have never done that and there does appear to be plenty of grease on them. Thoughts? I guess I'm leading to the need to do preventative maintenance on the top assembly besides spraying it with waterproofing. BTW, my original top and rear window are in very good shape. The window is totally clear! I use the two step Maguiar cleaner and polish to keep the plastic very flexible.

Another question I have is about the levers shown from KLA Engineering at Paragon products. Their site shows the complete lever assembly. Is that what they are selling or only the ends to replace the red plastic ones? I'll give them a call this week, but thought somebody out there would have the answer. Seventy bucks sounds too good to be true for the entire assembly!

Thanks again for the help and insights!

[Chris_in_NH]

i don't see any pics! ;)

just Paste the link to the pics in the message. like this:

http://www.my_pics_are_here.com/pic1.jpg

also Paste the link to Paragon if you'd like us to look there.

Edited June 3, 2007 by Chris_in_NH

[GRS from Kzoo]

I tried to load the images I posted at the Kodak Gallery site and in the preview they worked just fine. Perhaps they are not accessible by linking in this manner to Renntech. When I just tried to put the URLs from there in the post, the preview bounced and indicated that the image formats were not acceptable.

I've tried it again by uploading the same pictures to Flickr.com. Let's see if they link:

The clamshell before I disconnected the pushrods.

The adjustment screw which was not even finger tight.

The left and right levers on my car.

This picture linking stuff just seems a lot harder than it should be! Please be patient.

Thanks again.

[Chris_in_NH]

ok, i see now.

replace the bent V-lever and replace the push-rods with the red end caps. those red end caps will eventually break. the new reinforced ones (from Porsche) are white. the metal ones at Paragon look fine and will be cheaper than buying the entire push-rods for both sides. when replacing them, just note how many threads are showing on the old ones, and make sure you have the same number of threads showing when you screw on the new ones. you might still need to do a little adjusting, but you will be very close.

to be honest, the V-lever doesn't look *too* bad. you might be able to bend it back. or just leave it.

i know you said that you replaced the cables before you had any problems (good idea), but i don't understand how the V-lever would get bent like that if the top was working normally. presumably it would take a lot of force to bend it.

that 'adjustment screw' doesn't really adjust anything, it just holds the clamshell to the screw that slides in the rail.

with the clamshell push-rods (black canisters) disconnected, if you pull the clamshell up to its highest and farthest-back position, does it still look uneven? in the pic, it looks like the passenger side of the clamshell is simply slid more forward than the driver's side. again, if nothing broke previously, i don't see how the clamshell (or the V-lever) would be bent.

congrats on your pic posting! ;)

should be an easy fix.

[Tool Pants]

Your pictures are very small.

Due to the twisted/tweaked clamshell you have the typical top failure. One side of the top was moving, but not the other side. This is usually because one cable is being turned by the transmission and the other cable is not. The needed repairs have been covered several times already in the top section of this board. Your clamshell is not tweaked bady so get a friend and twist it back into shape - how to do this has already been covered.

Replace all bent or broken parts. Hard to tell for sure but the left V-lever does look bent.

I assume you broke at least one red plastic joint. Scott Levy is the guy who came up with the metal joints sold by KLA - he is a 944 guy. Scott and I traded emails years ago when he wanted to know if there was a market for metal joints. And the use of oem plastic or metal joints has been debated here before. All that KLA sells is the joint. There is no pushrod or V-lever included like in the picture on their site.

Scott was of the opinion that the top can fail because the plastic joint get brittle from the heat and the plastic joint is the first part to break. My experience is that the joint breaks only after something else first fails. My clamshell was tweaked like yours but I did not break a joint - in fact I did not break or bend any other parts. Mine failed because 1 cable was not turning and I caught it quickly (I get out of the car to do the chop) so all I did was to tweak the clamshell.

You have any easy fix. If the V-lever is bent then replace it rather than playing around with it. If you have broken plastic red joints then get the white plastic joints from the dealer. It takes 5 seconds to twist your clamshell back into shape - you will still have the dimples but a dent guy can take them out.

This is the metal joint that is being sold.

[Chris_in_NH]

Due to the twisted/tweaked clamshell you have the typical top failure. One side of the top was moving, but not the other side. This is usually because one cable is being turned by the transmission and the other cable is not. The needed repairs have been covered several times already in the top section of this board. Your clamshell is not tweaked bady so get a friend and twist it back into shape - how to do this has already been covered.

he said that he changed the cables proactively, before he had top problems. that's what i don't understand about this whole thing. maybe i'm still not understanding this correctly. ;)

Edited June 4, 2007 by Chris_in_NH

[GRS from Kzoo]

Just to further clarify, I did not replace the cables proactively, but it was the first thing I did after this episode started. I had not noticed the bent V lever until I installed the left side cable.

From your comments, I'm guessing that the cable was the first to actually go and the bent lever happened as a result. The loose fasteners and lubrication may have allowed some binding that caused the cable to pull from the motor. I was really surprised at how loose so many fasteners were. I'll keep an eye on them in the future.

I have actually not broken either of the red joints, and they were on quite snugly, but I'll be chasing down a new lever and joint ends this week. With a little luck I'll be driving her again next weekend! (It rained all day today anyhow).

As for the pictures, sorry about the size. Are there any recommended guidelines for picture size at this site? Upload seemed to take some time (even with my cable modem) so I may have made them too small trying to speed it up.

Thanks again for all you help!

[Tool Pants]

I do not know why your V-lever is bent. It could be from when you separated the joints for the black push rods for the clamshell. That joint can be under a lot of tension/pressure and I have see a broken V-lever that resulted from using a pry bar to separate the joint.

You can upload pictures directly to Renntech. When you post a message you should see a Browse button that you click on and then find the picture on your computer. Then you click on UPLOAD and when you use the Add Reply button your message and picture(s) are on Renntech.

[Chris_in_NH]

Just to further clarify, I did not replace the cables proactively, but it was the first thing I did after this episode started. I had not noticed the bent V lever until I installed the left side cable.

oh, ok. i get it now.

as far as the pictures, as Tool Pants mentioned, you can upload them directly to Renntech. but i use a site called P-Cars (http://www.pcars.us) where i have created an album. by doing this, all your pictures are ready-to-go for any site that you visit and want to post pics.

standard pic size for websites, etc. is 640 pixels by 480 pixels. there is a setting on your camera that will allow you to take pictures at this size, or using a photo program (Photoshop, Jasc Paint Shop Pro, etc.) you can resize the image to 640x480 and then upload it wherever you want.

[GRS from Kzoo]

UPDATE...

Okay, so I finally receive the metal rod ends from Paragon late Friday to finish the top repair and I am all excited to get the car back up and out this weekend. Unfortunately, the new rod ends are not threaded deeply enough to provide the same adjusted length as the original red plastic ones. Both joints (on both rods) stop about three threads short of the tape which I had put on the rods to assure adjustment like the original. The holes in the new rod ends are actually deeper than than the plastic part but the threads are not tapped nearly close enough to the bottom. I know I could cut off a quarter inch of rod and take care of it that way, but it bugs me to chop up a second piece to fix a problem with the first. So I'll start tomorrow to find someone with a metric bottoming tap to finish the job.

Has anyone else had this experience with the metal joint? I have emailed Paragon as it was the weekend and I supposed they wouldn't be there, but wanted the group to know of this potential problem. Also, there were no instructions with the joints as indicated at the Paragon site, but with the help here they are not too necessary. (Of course, it's a possibility that their instructions would tell me to cut off the rod I suppose)!

BTW, thanks for the note on the picture sizes, Chris. Also, I had tried to upload with the Browse button in the June 3 @ 12:32 post that did not upload properly. Seemed pretty straightforward so I'm not sure what I could have done wrong. Oh well...

Thanks again for all the help. I'll let the board know when I finally get this all done!

GRS

[Tool Pants]

Screwing the joint in or out on the end of the threaded push rod is for small length adjustments.

You can adjust the length of the push rod itself. Loosen the bolt on the push rod and then you can make the push rod longer or shorter. Here are the KLA instructions. http://www.klaindustries.net/bxstr-end/kla_986topfix1.pdf You do not need to remove the clamshell as stated in the instructions, which they call the tonneau.

[GRS from Kzoo]

Thanks for both the tip and the instructions, Toolpants.

I've got it all back together and functional and have been out enjoying the top down experience again. The clamshell is still a little twisted though, the driver's side being still a bit higher and further to the right than the passenger's throughout the up/down cycle, but the motor seems to have enough guts to pull it down when the cycle is done. Once the light goes out, the gap between the clamshell and the deck lid seems larger than before and the gap to the panel on the left edge is a little larger than the right.

Any tips on final adjustment to pull this all back into place or am I being too picky?

Thanks again!

[Tool Pants]

If the gap is because of the tweaked clamshell then disconnect the pushrods to the clamshell. You can then manually operate the clamshell up and down. If the clamshell does not sit flush in the closed position then get 2 people and twist it back into shape. One guy holds one end steady and the other guy lifts up or down to twist it so that it is flat and even with the trunk lid.