Roadster latch receptacle help

[elerner61]

The top on my roadster is having trouble unlatching. Comparing the right and left sides the roller on the latch receptacle on one side is seized. I need to take off the black plastic header piece to gain better access to the latch receptacle. Can anyone point me to instriuctions on how to remove the plastic header piece?

[Huz-Z]

I had a similar problem which I cured by getting a spray can of white lithium grease and carefully spraying a bit of grease on the rollers. I sprayed some on a clean rag and wiped that onto the roof hooks. That was a couple of years ago and its been fine since.

Perhaps this would work for you also?

[Nate4641]

Can you take a picture of what part you are referring to?

[StickMon]

Originally Posted by elerner61

... remove the plastic header piece?

If you mean the part across the top of the windshield with the dome light in it, just take out the 4 screws that hold the sun visors and it just pops right off.

Don't bother removing the dome light, there's a little slack in the cable so you can unplug it from behind once the whole piece is loose.

Just had mine off to re-glue the leather ... again.

[elerner61]

Thanks for the insight Stick, for some reason I couldn't see (focus/getting older) the screws securing the sun visor last night. I also want to be cautious and not break any fasteners/clips on the trim piece. I'm thinking I'll let the plastic warm up in the sun tomorrow during the day and do it then.

What I'm trying to gain access to is what is knows as the "baseplate" on the windshield header which the latch on the top hooks into. When the latch closes, the metal piece slides into the baseplate around a roller and then tightens. If the roller is not turning, when opening the roof the latch isn't strong enough to overcome the friction and doesn't unhook. Lubricating the roller surface definitely is a work around, but I'd like to fix the non-functioning roller.

I found some links to the online-TIS manual for the pieces:

http://workshop-manuals.com/bmw/z_se...left_or_right/
http://workshop-manuals.com/bmw/z_se...ont_roofliner/
http://workshop-manuals.com/bmw/z_se...unter_support/
http://workshop-manuals.com/bmw/z_se...ceiling_light/

[StickMon]

Surprisingly, there aren't any breakable plastic clips or anything.
It just hooks over the rear edge.
After you take the 4 screws out, just rotate the front down slightly and it should pretty much fall right off.
IIRC, you do have clear access to the bits the top hooks into once it's off.
Once it's off you can also pop the A-pillar covers off, if you have a need to.
Just slide up and out.

I had to re-glue the leather on those too.
I'm tempted to replace them all with plastic.
The leather's a PITA and nobody's ever gotten into my car and said "Wow, nice leather A-pillars".

[elerner61]

20 minutes in and out. The roller was rubbing against the side of the baseplate. How this happened (maybe it was always like this)? Who knows. My solution was to remove the baseplate form the car, remove the roller by punching the axle/pin, sand down one side of the roller and re-install.

No need for any lube on the now functioning roller.

[Kimo]

Originally Posted by elerner61

20 minutes in and out. The roller was rubbing against the side of the baseplate. How this happened (maybe it was always like this)? Who knows. My solution was to remove the baseplate form the car, remove the roller by punching the axle/pin, sand down one side of the roller and re-install.

No need for any lube on the now functioning roller.

Excellent. Once I pull my car out of winter wraps, I'm going to look in this area as the top was infrequently hanging and I seem to recall one roller spinning and the other - not so much.
If so, I may come back to you for greater detail.
In any case, glad you got it sorted out.

[elerner61]

One thing to add is that the pin is machined only on one side to hold it in the baseplate. You should punch the pin from the non-machined side for it to be removed. I just lucked out and picked the correct side, you may be able to notice which-is-which if you look carefully.

[Kimo]

Originally Posted by Kimo

Excellent. Once I pull my car out of winter wraps, I'm going to look in this area as the top was infrequently hanging and I seem to recall one roller spinning and the other - not so much.
If so, I may come back to you for greater detail.
In any case, glad you got it sorted out.

Hey Elerner - sure enough my driver side roller is very difficult to turn, and the passenger side is not spinning 'freely' either. I suspect that - like yours - they are rubbing against the sides of the baseplate.
I'm back to this thread for a little more detail on your removal process, if you'd be so kind.
From what I gather, the top plastic trim can be easily removed by removing the two sets of two screws that secure the visors - then the trim piece lifts off. Correct?
I see the roller axle pin running fore/aft, almost accessible in place once the trim is removed -- but I note that you removed the entire baseplate. How?
And regarding the direction for extraction of the axle pin, do you recall whether it should be punched from the aft direction forward, or the forward direction backwards? Not visualizing your description of machined side, as both ends looked pretty much the same to me.
Any other detail would be appreciated.
Did this fix indeed solve your 'hanging' problem?
Thanks!

Another thought - if just a hair needs to be sanded from one end of the black roller to allow clearance for it to spin freely on the axle, why not just do it in place with an exacto knife and a steady hand? Is it plastic? rubber?

[elerner61]

Hi Kimo,

My shaving the side of the rubber roller has indeed solved the top hanging up when opening. The rubber roller (I have seen some pictures indicated that on early Zeds it may have also been made of metal) is made of rather hard material. Trying to hack at it with an exacto knife would be more time consuming I feel than the full removal/repair/replace and it would be real ugly .

Here's a step-by-step from my memory. Total time to do both rollers could be under 30 mins.
1. Open top (of course)
2. Remove both sun visors via two phillips screws for each sun visor
3. Grab plastic header cover with both hands (one near each sun visor) and pull rearwards. Your goal is to pull the header cover back two inches or so to help gain access to the latch baseplate mounting screws
4. Remove the two latch baseplate allen screws while holding down plastic header cover to gain access to screws
5. Remove latch baseplate from car
6. Examine the metal pin that the roller rotates around from each side, only one side of the pin is "serrated" so as to hold the pin in place. You want to punch this side out. If you can't identify which side it is, just guess. Worst case is you'll have to hammer the pin back in from the other side.
7. Position latch base plate over a socket or on a vise and using a small punch/nail/screw, apply hammer to remove the pin. It took one good shot. (tip: If you're using a screw to hammer out the pin, hold the screw with gloved fingers to avoid loss of blood from fingers)
8. Sand one side of the rubber roller until it fits into the baseplate with a small amount of play. I just used a piece or coarse sandpaper (dremel not needed)
9. Insert roller, insert pin, re-apply hammer and test to see that roller spins freely
10. Re-install baseplate and button everything up.

There are no electronics associated with the locking baseplate. Be careful when removing the baseplate screws since if they fall into the plastic header you may have to remove the plastic header to fish them out (accompanied by the required cursing).

[Kimo]

Originally Posted by elerner61

Hi Kimo,

My shaving the side of the rubber roller has indeed solved the top hanging up when opening. The rubber roller (I have seen some pictures indicated that on early Zeds it may have also been made of metal) is made of rather hard material. Trying to hack at it with an exacto knife would be more time consuming I feel than the full removal/repair/replace and it would be real ugly .

Here's a step-by-step from my memory. Total time to do both rollers could be under 30 mins.
1. Open top (of course)
2. Remove both sun visors via two phillips screws for each sun visor
3. Grab plastic header cover with both hands (one near each sun visor) and pull rearwards. Your goal is to pull the header cover back two inches or so to help gain access to the latch baseplate mounting screws
4. Remove the two latch baseplate allen screws while holding down plastic header cover to gain access to screws
5. Remove latch baseplate from car
6. Examine the metal pin that the roller rotates around from each side, only one side of the pin is "serrated" so as to hold the pin in place. You want to punch this side out. If you can't identify which side it is, just guess. Worst case is you'll have to hammer the pin back in from the other side.
7. Position latch base plate over a socket or on a vise and using a small punch/nail/screw, apply hammer to remove the pin. It took one good shot. (tip: If you're using a screw to hammer out the pin, hold the screw with gloved fingers to avoid loss of blood from fingers)
8. Sand one side of the rubber roller until it fits into the baseplate with a small amount of play. I just used a piece or coarse sandpaper (dremel not needed)
9. Insert roller, insert pin, re-apply hammer and test to see that roller spins freely
10. Re-install baseplate and button everything up.

There are no electronics associated with the locking baseplate. Be careful when removing the baseplate screws since if they fall into the plastic header you may have to remove the plastic header to fish them out (accompanied by the required cursing).

Awesome . . . exactly what I was looking for . . . thanks E!
This will help many to come, as these rollers seem to just stick on their own after a few years.
I'll dig in this weekend.
PS - the admonishments about avoiding loss of blood and runaway screws proves to me that your description is not simply theoretically, but indeed empirically, based

[elerner61]

[QUOTE=
PS - the admonishments about avoiding loss of blood and runaway screws proves to me that your description is not simply theoretically, but indeed empirically, based [/QUOTE]

Grip sides of screw with thumb and forefinger, raise hammer, deliver thy mighty blow, observe flow of blood, shake head from side to side and with a smirk wonder why brain did not work faster. I guess I'm truly not old and omniscient yet.

[Kimo]

Originally Posted by elerner61

I guess I'm truly not old and omniscient yet.

'Old and omniscient' is the step just before 'old and in the way' . . .

[Kimo]

Originally Posted by elerner61

Hi Kimo,

My shaving the side of the rubber roller has indeed solved the top hanging up when opening. The rubber roller (I have seen some pictures indicated that on early Zeds it may have also been made of metal) is made of rather hard material. Trying to hack at it with an exacto knife would be more time consuming I feel than the full removal/repair/replace and it would be real ugly .

Here's a step-by-step from my memory. Total time to do both rollers could be under 30 mins.
1. Open top (of course)
2. Remove both sun visors via two phillips screws for each sun visor
3. Grab plastic header cover with both hands (one near each sun visor) and pull rearwards. Your goal is to pull the header cover back two inches or so to help gain access to the latch baseplate mounting screws
4. Remove the two latch baseplate allen screws while holding down plastic header cover to gain access to screws
5. Remove latch baseplate from car
6. Examine the metal pin that the roller rotates around from each side, only one side of the pin is "serrated" so as to hold the pin in place. You want to punch this side out. If you can't identify which side it is, just guess. Worst case is you'll have to hammer the pin back in from the other side.
7. Position latch base plate over a socket or on a vise and using a small punch/nail/screw, apply hammer to remove the pin. It took one good shot. (tip: If you're using a screw to hammer out the pin, hold the screw with gloved fingers to avoid loss of blood from fingers)
8. Sand one side of the rubber roller until it fits into the baseplate with a small amount of play. I just used a piece or coarse sandpaper (dremel not needed)
9. Insert roller, insert pin, re-apply hammer and test to see that roller spins freely
10. Re-install baseplate and button everything up.

There are no electronics associated with the locking baseplate. Be careful when removing the baseplate screws since if they fall into the plastic header you may have to remove the plastic header to fish them out (accompanied by the required cursing).

Done. Just as Elerner61 described. Thanks.
I'll add the following tips.
1) once the base plates are removed, it's easy to see the serrated vs. smooth ends. Punch at the smooth end so the serrated end exits the plate.
2) put a piece of painters tape or something to prevent the pin - once whacked - from flying out onto the floor and running into the furthest corner.
3) rub the roller on a piece of sandpaper as if you were erasing the end - but hold it flat of course.
Took me about 30 minutes or so.
Thanks again Elerner61.

[Kimo]

Well . . . the above undertaking (shortening the rollers in the baseplate so that they turn freely) seems to have actually made my situation WORSE - going from an occasional hang-up to now hanging virtually every time.
I now need to manually 'assist' the top's retraction by pushing the header/latching assembly upwards to help it disengage from the baseplates.

I can't imagine that freeing the siezed rollers was detrimental, so must assume that 1) there is another issue that needs to be corrected and 2) that some adjustment I made in connection with the above procedure actually exacerbated the problem.

I think that the only adjustment could have been a slightly different placement of the baseplates, as there is a millimeter or so of side to side adjustment when reinstalling them. Maybe I need to loosen and move them a bit?

However, I am not optimistic that such a small adjustment will cure the underlying problem and would really appreciate any ideas.

The hooking mechanisms seem to operate freely when manually manipulated - with no apparent binding - but perhaps some lithium grease might not hurt. The scissor mechanisms are barely accessible, but perhaps some grease there?

The only problem seems to be the unlatching sequence from the header, as once the top is in motion it retracts (and also comes up, for that matter) just fine.

Am I missing anything? Thanks for any ideas.