QuestionHave a '90 Volvo 760 s/w with a power sun roof. Switch and cable seem fine. Lots of play in the "togs" that control the micro-switches...in the motor assembly. What is the alignment you put the cam gear at .... say with the sun roof closed? Have tried many scenarios. Don't say new motor assembly.
Answer Tom, ok, I'll be silent..............
Seriously, you should be able to set it up. You people REALLY need to learn how to Google! VBG :) Here are two helpful articles.
Mark
Sunroof Overhaul. [Tips from Ken Dibnah on stuck sunroofs] Is the roof manual or electric? If it is electric, there may be electrical problems with switches, wires and fuses, which I will not deal with. Will it open? My experience with them is the 'tracks' at the rear of the roof that raise and lower the panel, pot metal I think, break and jam everything up. Also the roof is rarely cleaned or lubricated: if this is done carefully, the only thing to do is to replace worn/broken bits and then adjust the 4 adjusting screws, one at each corner.
You may also have to replace the sealer that lives around the perimeter of the sliding panel, as it may not provide the exact clearance required to allow movement yet still seal.
I will assume it is electric and the motor works (that may need an overhaul - usual motor clean-up with commutator-cleaning and possibly lubrication, although it may have sealed bearings (most likely)). If it
does not work, remove the panel that covers it and use the tool that is supplied in the tool kit, inserted in the shaft, to manually move it. Also, when you look at the motor, there is a guarded-by-paint screw that I
believe is used to adjust the microswitches, but I have not observed any change when I fiddled with my own. There may be an issue with these switches as to positioning when the motor stops, but bear in mind it is possible to toss the motor and use a crank/manual version from another model.
Do you know how to get at the roof? Open up the rear roof part in the vent position and peer inside. There are 2 clips that are best removed/gripped with needle-nose pliers, unclip them and these will release the head-liner cover from the moving panel. Go back inside the car and push the headliner back in its slot, but not too far in lest it get jammed, as it likes to do; everything is now revealed.
The panel just sits on the tracks in the front, and is actually a loose fit. Most likely you will see that the screw/worm that drives the roof back on either side will be gummed up with old grease/lube, in typical Volvo fashion; I found that liberal doses of WD40 loosened the goo so it was possible to remove a lot of it. Re-lube was done with spray lithium grease, but beware the close proximity to headliner et al, the grease fairly flies about and careful masking is required.
If you need to remove the roof, close it as far as required to reach the rear screws; the screws at each corner remove easily and the panel then lifts out (I have contemplated putting in a glass roof like a
780....hmmmm). Put a blanket on the roof so you have somewhere to set the panel. Taking it off may not be necessary, but it would make it easier to clean all the tracks. I used a dry stick lube on the tracks,
but I think something less viscous might help the operation (perhaps the aforementioned lithium grease?), but I would worry about getting it on clothing etc. I have a vague memory of some cables and small springs? I do not have them on my roof, but maybe on an older one? Other car I worked on was a crank-driven roof on an 85 740 GLE, but I think there was no involvement with these cables, except to unclip 'em when the panel came out? If yours doesn't have 'em, forgive my 'old' moment.
If you replace broken tracks/racks, I would replace them in pairs, as whatever shock that has caused the roof to fail may have affected both sides. As I recall, they are involved with split-rings, diabolically
small and determined to shoot far under your workbench.
The front of the roof pops up into position only by riding up on the collapsed wind deflector. There are (2?) rubber snubbers that sit under the deflector, only glued in, and frequently these have vanished,
therefore not encouraging the roof to finish in the flush position. The rear pops into place by the action of the racks, those that are most likely damaged, and its position is adjusted by the screws that you
remove to take off the panel, as well as by the position of the worms when the motor shuts off - you can observe this as the worm should sit in the bottom of the rack, holding it flush, when the motor
stops turning.
You can remove all the tracking/guides/bearing surfaces from the car, just by undoing everything and replacing it in order, but why would you want to? If a worm has broken, perhaps, but cleaning in situ should suffice.
With the roof out, your experience should allow you to fix whatever I have neglected to mention. Look for warping, physical damage etc.
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Electric Sunroof Motor Overhaul.
[Tips on Motor and Cam Follower Overhaul] There have been some comments recently about 740 electric sunroof problems. My experience with my '90 740 GLE follows. Perhaps it may be of use to others.
Problem: occasionally, if the sunroof were opened to either the full back or full tilt position, it would not be possible to move it out of these positions. When pushing the switch, the click if the motor solenoid could be heard, but the motor did not operate. Sometimes, persistence paid off and the roof would close after a few tries, but on other occasions, the only way to get it to close was to remove the plastic panel covering the motor and with a large common screwdriver turn the drive shaft 1/4 turn in the closed direction (as evidenced by movement of the roof) after which the motor would respond to the switch input.
Diagnosis: I concluded there was a problem in the switch(es) internal to the motor unit.
Corrective action:
Remove the motor as follows:
Remove the two screws holding the plastic cover (2 #10 torx screws)
Cut the headliner as required to get access to the motor - only cut areas that will be covered by the plastic cover. Obviously when the car was built, the motor was installed first and then covered by the headliner.
Remove two small Phillips screws near the rear of the motor housing, 1 10mm nut at the front, and one large Phillips screw that connects the motor ground to the body just in front of the motor (front and rear refer to the ends of the car that have headlights and brakelights respectively).
Withdraw the motor and undo the connector (may be a little easier said than done depending on the amount of slack in the cable)
With the motor out of the car, remove the white plastic cover over the switch cam (I'm making up names as I go here). It is held in place by three snap clips and is easy to remove. This will reveal a large (2+ in dia) white plastic cam disk that is driven by the motor/gearbox output gear. On this disk are three cams. There are black plastic cam followers that activate one microswitch each on the top and bottom cams. On the middle of the three cams there is a white plastic follower that moves a plastic leaf that in turn activates both microswitches. The black cam followers had fairly sharp points that rested on the surface of the cam, while the white one had a rather blunt point. My conclusion was that the white one had worn to the point that it no longer activated the microswitches reliably. To overcome this I glued a piece of cardboard (as in cereal box, although others may come up with a preferred method) to the ivory coloured plastic leaf the follower contacts. The cardboard was positioned so that the follower would contact it, thus compensating for the presumed wear to the tip of the follower. I then applied some grease to the surface of the cam with the hope of minimizing further wear and put everything back together.
Result: So far the sunroof has operated 100% reliably. I hope my conclusion about wear to the
cam follower was correct and that the roof will continue to work properly.
[Tips on Motor Electrical Overhaul from Pete Gotseff]
Testing:
1) If your motor "clicks" but doesn't move, remove motor cover (2 phillips) and get access to the motor connector (comes in from left side). The blue and red wires at the two prong connector should be +12V or –12V depending on sunroof momentary switch position. If you’re getting proper voltage to the motor verify brown ground wire is well grounded (very important!). If I recall correctly an improperly grounded motor will “click” but not move.
2) You will be removing the motor so it would be best to put sunroof in vent or closed position with a screwdriver on the manual override. Either of these two positions will allow the motor and sunroof to be timed correctly when reinstalling the motor.
3) If voltage and ground check out – reconnect connector and unscrew (2 phillips) and unbolt nut (10mm) and let motor hang (not a good idea but what the heck). Now test the motor while electrically connected including the ground. Again, make sure the ground is well grounded. BTW, if the motor moves you will have to retime the motor :-) more on this later. If the motor works normally it is likely your sunroof is binding and you should drop the headliner and dive headfirst into that problem.
4) If motor still just clicks test the motor itself by putting 12V across the actual motor terminals (not the connector) and see if the motor runs smoothly. Reverse polarity to verify both directions.
A properly working motor will rotate (as seen from the bottom and in vent position) CCW about 1 turn to closed, pause, push SR button again and CCW about 8 turns to full open. Not exactly sure about # of turns.
Repair:
If the motor still just clicks then it will likely one of the two microswitches located in the timing gear cover.
1) Pop off the three tabs and carefully rotate the white nylon cover out of the metal motor case leaving the motor wiring connected. This plastic cover contains two microswitches, a selenoid (remember "click") and three small pointed plungers. FYI: These plungers are actuated by the sunroof motor driven timing gear which remains in the case. The timing gear has three alignment points on three levels which correspond to vent, closed and full open. The center point on the middle level is "closed." This will help when you retime the motor.
2) Remove the micoswitch holder pin at the corner (some have a slot to adjust switch position and small retainer clip) and remove the microswitches as a pair (they are soldered together). They can be removed without removing anything else by using a small jewelers screwdriver to move the microswitch plungers out of the way of the selenoid actuator. Now, use photographic memory or paper to record colors of wires on each switch (you'll be sorry if you don't). Unsolder just one side of the common copper ribbon holding the microswitches together (just one side is good, leave the other side attached to the other switch). Then unsolder the remaining wiring (two black leads) which hold the switches to the selenoid.
3) With switches free test each one for high resistance through the normally closed circuit – the front (blue or red) connections to side terminals. My switch had 63 Ohms across these terminals when they should've been around 1-2 Ohms.
At this point you should find a bad microswitch. You can repair (as below) or replace from a good electronics store (i.e. not Radio Shack) be sure to get a switch with lug terminals not spade type. Spade type will not fit when placing switches back into the cover.
4) Now open switch case by carefully drilling out one side of two small metal retaining rivets. Punch rivets through with small screwdriver. Open case carefully to avoid spring, switch assembly from flying behind/over/under workbench. Sand contacts lightly with sandpaper. Reassemble case and epoxy switch case cover (you'll never do this again). Resolder switches and reassemble them into the cover.
5) Turn the motor manually with a screwdriver to ensure the three level plunger in the cover will fall somewhere between the three timing points on the timing gear. But don’t align the gear points directly with the three level plunger – they will interfere when putting the cover back on. Replace the cover which contains the microswitches and selenoid onto the motor case.
6) I suppose now would be a good time to bench test the motor. If no 12V supply is available (I use an old Sun computer power supply) test in the car (see below).
Retiming motor (electrically installed in car):
1) Make sure motor is electrically connected to sunroof connector and ground. Now, run motor CW (as seen from below) until it stops, push on momentary switch again. If no movement then motor is in vent position.
2) If sunroof is in vent position motor can be reinstalled. If sunroof is in closed position push sunroof button to rotate the motor CCW to the closed position. Now the motor can be reinstalled. This may take some trial and error but if the motor is working correctly you’ll figure it out eventually – HeHe.
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Only 4 Volvo's?? You must live in the city. I'm not afraid of you. Bring it on!
Mark
