bent top parts...

[rsfeller]

OK so there is more to my broken red push arm connectors then I thought. I have temporarly rulled out the cable being the cause because my cable is within spec and looks like the newer upgrade. I determined last night that the clamshell is working fine and my top goes up/down manually no problem. Did 101 times last night so I drove the car to work today...

Guess what...top wouldn't go up manually! Got 1/2 way and something was binding then I heard a bolt or something fall upon inspection found a metal arm bent on the inside of the top mechanism. I believe this may be a cause of my red push rod issues as I don't believe having the push rods out of the car has cuased the bent part.

Best I can tell from the rough schematic shown below it is the area in yellow that is damaged (but intact) with the arm the arrow points to having one hell of a bend in it. It appears the slider pin that holds it between the guide fell out and all hell broke loose. Anyone have any experience with this part?

Part # 986 561 247 00

The good news I am replacing my top this month so I can take all the canvas off to facilitate getting to parts. I believe this metal part has to do with the back window frame folding up for service mode as it now is very hard to move up and creaks really bad.

The list this whole assembly for $600 retail and I only need the arm so I will search ebay or bend this one back but will struggle to find the unquie pin that holds it.

Any comments from experience or understanding would be appricated on what is going on here and how to deal with it!

[Chris_in_NH]

here is a picture of the top frame internals similar to yours.

if you follow the below link and click on the part that you need, it will highlight that part in the right frame and show you the part number and price.

Pelican Parts - Conv Top Frame

here is the link to the overall online picture-part catalog for the 986. bookmark it, you will need it! ;)

Pelican Parts Part Lookup for 986

[rsfeller]

I went through this with a Saab and a sunroof and I am now the guru of sunroofs just like Chris is the guru of tops! As always thanks to Chris on his attentiveness to top issues.

I have the luxury of working at a ski resort with a million dollar maintenance facility but even better a collection of mechanics that really are good and thinking before wrenching. We took our turn looking into the top components over the drivers shoulder and here is what we came up with. The yellow in the following image is bent inboard about 3-4cm and causes some binding for the rear bow assembly when the top is down or when trying to put it in service mode.

What happened is the pin that allows this arm to rest into the cam assebly fell out. We found the pin and its got some wear marks on it but the cotter pin that held cannot be found. Additionally the plastic guides in the cam are missing on one side. To follow this you'd really have to be intimate with this area such as I am!

I am quite sure that this pin fell out creating some uneven tensions which snapped the brittle (old) red knuckle push rods on both side, pop pop. I was able to get the top up and down at home manually and road to work this morning with the top down.

I believe by putting the clam shell down 100% allowed additional movement and pressure to release the arm (yellow in first image) from being between the two cams, since the pin was MIA. It got in the wrong spot and when I put the top up it bent. I didn't use much pressure but with it being aluminum and the minimal pressure I created obviously translated to something greater through leverage.

We have determined if we can get the arm out that we can put the right bend back into, reinsert the pin, find a new cotter pin and avoid the $500 cost for a whole new assembly marked as #23 in the first photo. The bent arm does have a Porsche part number on it but it doesn't show up in the parts lists...you have to buy the whole assembly. Not me I'm cheap and love a challenge! Each pivot point in the top mechanism is a pin held by an flat clip on the outboard side of the car. Most clips can be goten to accept the one I need, you can see nothing of the clip due to the foam drainage tray and close proximity to the inner body. Therefor we are going to pull the top frame and bench it to get the pin out to get to the offending arm. I will document this procedure out of curiosity for most as I doubt this happens often.

Since many of us are approaching 10 years on these we are going to start seeing less common failure points other then the common cable failure. Stay tuned...we'll pull off the frame tomorrow and I should have posts tomorrow night. If all goes well we'll install the new white knuckles on Friday when they arrive and resync the top before pressing the button!

Still looking for feedback if the roll bar must come off to remove the top frame. The Porsche Tech manual says yes, but me and a couple other mechanics think no!