Help with trouble shooting sunroof/moonroof

tomw said:

If the gear, motor and cables are intact, then the panel should not be movable(readily) manually. It is likely the 'chewed up' cables allow slippage around/past the drive gear, and allow the gear to spin without moving the cable. The toothed cables are the mechanism that moves the panel back and forth, and if they slip, the panel will not move.
I believe in the first image you are showing where the cables bypass each other when they travel past the drive gear. Inside the housing, the cables are supposed to be pressed up against the gear, meshed, to enable the gear to pull/push on the cables.
tom

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tomw said:

If the cables are chewed, the gear will spin... and the cables will just sit there staring at the teeth wiggling by on the motor shaft. And the panel will also remain where it is. IOW the cables must be intact for the thing to work.
I would suggest checking the operation of the glass, sliding back and forth manually to see how difficult it is. It should not bind in any particular position, but should slide pretty easily from full closed to full open and back to full closed. If it binds, it is either damaged, rusty, twisted, or in need of lubrication. I think you should be able to see the areas where the panel rests on the tracks, which would be a good area to apply some lubrication. Generally a light (lithium?) white grease is smeared using something similar to a paintbrush at the factory. You can use fingers, 'acid brush', or a small paintbrush to duplicate. I would clear the tracks prior to adding just so the application is sort of equal across the surface.
tom

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ProjectSHO89 said:

Make sure the attachments for the drive cable to the glass aren't broken. Common failure.

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