Moonroof won't "lift" at the back in closed position

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74Dusted

74Dusted

Stock Piler of 340's
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Just finished installing a new vinyl top and replaced the moonroof assembly in my '73 Duster. The gears & cables were chewed up in the original. The "new" moonroof has perfect cables & gears in in it

The "new" moonroof was completely dismantled, cleaned, lubed, put back together and installed in the car. It cranks pretty easy, forward and back, but when it gets to the closed position, the back doesn't seem to want to lift unless you give it some assistance (by hand)

What's going on there?
 
Sounds like the motor doesn't have enough torque to finish closing it. Is it the original motor? How is the ground to the motor? Are you getting 12.5 volts or more to the motor while it is operating?
 
68gtxman said:
Sounds like the motor doesn't have enough torque to finish closing it. Is it the original motor? How is the ground to the motor? Are you getting 12.5 volts or more to the motor while it is operating?
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Hand Crank power :D

Seems to lift some on the passenger side, not at all on the driver's side unless I help it up into place. Even then it's still noticeably lower at the rear of the moonroof when closed
 
What pops it up in back is a small ramp on a stamped steel piece that the cable goes under. If the roof is a little misaligned, it may not be pulling far enough forward to pull the it all the way up those little ramps. When you installed the cables, did you make sure they were equidistant on both sides? The other thing could be that the rear adjusters aren't at the right slots which would **** the roof a bit. Also make sure that the front height is properly adjusted. When I did mine, it took a few tries to get everything just right.
 
440plus6 said:
What pops it up in back is a small ramp on a stamped steel piece that the cable goes under. If the roof is a little misaligned, it may not be pulling far enough forward to pull the it all the way up those little ramps. When you installed the cables, did you make sure they were equidistant on both sides? The other thing could be that the rear adjusters aren't at the right slots which would **** the roof a bit. Also make sure that the front height is properly adjusted. When I did mine, it took a few tries to get everything just right.
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How do adjust the front height? The front does look like it's sticking up too far (I just figured it'd come down when the back came up), maybe that's part of the problem.

How about those rear adjusters?

I assume I have to completely tear the whole assembly out of the car again to make these changes?

EDIT : Figured out the Front Adjusters (removed the interior panel from the moonroof), got the front height set properly, now it looks a lot closer, but I apparently need to adjust the Rear up some, but I'm not sure how you change the height on the rear?
 
For the back, I think the first thing to check, is to make sure the spring is on top of the rear guide roller. I know mine was missing parts so the first time I put it together, I didn't get this right. The spring helps force it up. I can't remember for sure, but I think there may be a little adjustment available back where the rear guide and roller attach. If this is okay I believe there can be some adjustment made at the back. As I recall there are slots in the little part of the guide that pivots and screws to the roller (or the part may be part of the roller and attach to the guide-memory is a little hazy on this). Anyway, when you look at it, you should be able to see what I'm talking about. It's not the most convenient access, but you can get to it without removing the assembly.
 
Also, if you don't already have it, someone here posted an excerpt from the shop manual for the sunroof. It was for 75 but they're pretty much the same.
 
You wouldn't happen to have a link to that sunroof excerpt that was posted, do you? I tried searching but didn't have any luck tracking down that in particular.

This look right?



I don't see how the spring above the little plastic rollers would pop up the sunroof when they're so far away from the rollers, they're only close to them when the roof is retracted/open. Or maybe I'm just not seeing it? I looked at the old moonroof assembly I removed from the car and it's set up the same way
 
It looks like your problem is the springs aren't over the roller. That straight piece of spring steel goes over the roller. Right now the roller is set back to where the spring isn't near it so it looks like you may have the cables reversed side to side. I'll look to see if I can find the link again and will post it if I can.
 
Not to get off the subject, and I don't want to hijack your thread, but did you replace the gasket? If so, where did you find it? My brother needs one and has had no luck finding one.
 
Appreciate the manual.

I just checked the cables compared to the ones in the original (broken) moonroof, and they are on the correct sides. The easiest way to tell, was the rollers are pressed into the little sliders (that are part of the cables) and if they were backwards, the rollers would be pointing toward the outside of the car, instead of toward the moonroof (like it shows in the manual)

I'm not sure why the springs aren't lining up with the rollers, but even if they were, it wouldn't be enough to lift the moonroof into the closed position. If I lift the moonroof into the closed position, the rollers are a good 1" below the springs.
 
Well that's not good as I think the only thing left is to take the roof back apart. If I recall correctly, the rollers are mounted on a pivot. The only thing I can imagine left would be that the rollers are pivoted towards the back of the roof and they need to be towards the front. Unfortunately, I can't recall for sure exactly how they were set up and I can't get a good enough look at the setup with the roof in place. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.
 
Mopar to ya said:
Not to get off the subject, and I don't want to hijack your thread, but did you replace the gasket? If so, where did you find it? My brother needs one and has had no luck finding one.
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I'm not sure what you mean by gasket. Layson's has a couple of the weatherstrip pieces. If you're talking about the trim piece that goes around the hole from the inside of the car to cover the edges, good luck on that. I've got one that's only in so so shape that I'm going to have to dye and use because I can't find a good one.
 
The rollers are mounted to the cable ends on both of the moonroofs I have, here's a picture from the old moonroof. The pivot for the rear mount/hinge is mounted further forward of the roller.



The weird part is the springs are in a fixed location on the moonroof lid too, so I'm not sure what's up there. Both the springs and the rollers are in fixed locations.
 
That's why I don't like relying on my memory LOL. It's the mount that's on the pivot and not the roller. Sorry but I'm out of ideas at this point.
 
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