Broken sunroof?

[bmo]

Hey all,

I recently bought a 94 RS and so far I love it. It needed a bit of work to pass safety here but I managed to get it done, so it is on the road. I'm happy with it... mostly.

I am by no means a car expert (although I do a fair bit of mechanical work on sport bikes) but I am not opposed to getting my hands dirty and fixing problems myself.

There is one thing I'd still like to fix, and that is the sunroof. When I press the button on the overhead console, the motor works but the roof goes nowhere. To me, this sounds like a gear has been stripped down or isn't catching, or perhaps it has somehow come out of the track, etc.

Does anybody have a resource for helping me trouble shoot this, or experienced this problem before? I don't really want to tear up my roof without having a general idea of the various things that could be causing the problem and how I could fix them.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Brian

PS - I believe I met another board member the other day, Colin, at the local Mazda dealership's parts counter.

[colinf004]

try pushing the sunroof up by your hand when you are pushing the sunroof button to open it.... if it does open your in luck, just spray some wd-40 or drop some lubercant on the hinges/ guiderailsas you open/ close it. that should fix your litttle prob.. it happens to me from time to time.

[bmo]

Thanks for the reply, I'll give that a try when I get home and see if it helps.

Brian

[colinf004]

cool, hope it works

[Daninski]

I believe the gear stipping is a common problem from what I've read. I have to push up on my sun roof to open it or else the window will stick.

[colinf004]

yeah happens to me alot I just lubercate it.

[bmo]

Was at work late tonight... just got home. No time to play around with the car.

Will have to check it out tomorrow.

Brian

[bmo]

Alright so I checked it out and took it apart.

Simply pushing up did not help me and I had an hour so I decided to investigate the problem. The motor was working fine but the gears weren't engaging the threaded wire/pulleys. I assume this was because they were too gunked up with oil, fluff and dust. While I was cleaning one of these two threaded wires, it came out of the clamp/interlock that connects it to the track/rail.

Any ideas on how I can get it back in? It does not look like it's actually broken, just that it seems to have come out. They are very small philips head screws holding it all in place that are really NOT very accessible so I was not able to take the thing apart further.

Anybody have a micro/parts fiche link for the sunroof... or know how to take it apart and put it back together again? Where is Humpty Dumpty when you need him...

Brian

[bmo]

Had it into the dealership about some other things so I also asked them to look at the sunroof.

Turns out it was an aftermarket sunroof which is why I was having so much trouble with it.

Think I'll just be buying some black caulking and sealing it... shame but not worth the money to fix.

Thanks for your help everyone!

Brian

[onlytrueromeo]

I didnt know you could get an aftermarket motorized sunroof...if the controls are on the same switch as the console lights, and the sunroof is made of metal, I'd think the stealership was lying. I pulled my moonroof apart this summer because I had the same problem. I took it all apart, cleaned it, lubed it, and installed. Still have to mount the motor, but it moves ALOT more freely by hand.

Theres a bunch of interlocking parts that need to be put in a specific order so it functions right.

[bmo]

Yep it's motorized... it did not appear to me to be aftermarket at all but I have never seen (upclose) an mx-3 sunroof so I couldn't really say one way or the other.

It is fairly close to working... if i could get the whole damn thing apart to clean it and put it back together I'm sure it would work. I semi took it apart and it was kind of working, but the gearing from the motor skips or doesn't engage the track pulley wire's properly so it won't close/seal very well -- which is a big problem when it rains and winter is coming!

If i could just get the damn thing entirely apart I think I could fix it... but alas... time... weather.... will probably just seal it.

I have looked at the service manual from this site regarding the sunroof and I couldn't really tell if they were the same... perhaps I'll have a closer look now that you've cast doubt on that.

Brian

[bmo]

So I had another look at the shop manual on the site and it is definitely an aftermarket sunroof. The motor in mine is much different from the one shown there.

It does have a motorized control near the rearview mirror...

Maybe I won't seal it just yet. Sealing it will be fairly quick... there is (hopefully) still some good weather ahead of us that I can tool around with it for...

Brian

[onlytrueromeo]

Can you get the sunroof open by hand? Try this - 1) Take the motor out. I'm assuming you've already dropped the headliner, since you have to do this to get to the parts. 2) Push up on the moonroof so it pops up in the back, then pull back on the moonroof. If this isn't working, you may need to disable the "clips" that hold the moonroof from sliding back on its own. To do this, use a pair of pliers and pull on the cable thingys that are exposed. You should hear/feel a small "click" as they release, then it should pull back. 3) With the moonroof back, you should have a view into the channels / slides that it rests on. They're aluminum...do they look shiney metal like or full of dirt and beetles? Dropping the moonroof isn't that hard but it's ALOT easier with 2 people. If you don't feel comfortable with it, you should just be able to take off the metal sunroof part without dropping the frame itself. (There should be 6 nuts you need to take off). 4) Take just the metal sunroof out and clean the piss out of the tracks. You might want to remove your seats in the car and put plastic down to keep your interior nice, or you can drop the whole frame. I opted to take out the frame, and disassemble the whole thing, clean w/ pipe cleaner and acetone and orange cleaner, and reassemble. You can try it without dropping the frame first and seeing if that works, then decide what you want to do after. If you have someone helping to drop the frame and reinstall, it should take you no more than a day to do everything if you have the cleaning supplys, etc.

[onlytrueromeo]

I think there might be 2 different motors, one for the earlier gens, and one for the later gens. Were you looking at the '92 manual? I tried to purchase a new motor for my 92 from ebay and it was a different piece from a later mx3 (I believe it was 96). If you can take some pictures, I might be able to help more.

[bmo]

Yep I'll snap some pics tomorrow when I pick it up from the dealership.

Thanks for the interest and help!

Brian