I just repaired a broken bit on my roof carriage (sunroof mechanism) that had me disassembling the roof using these Tullid videos -
This isn't my question but I'll put the links here just for easy reference for anyone who has to disassemble and troubleshoot their roof:

1. Tullid Video 1
2. Tullid video 2
3. Tullid video 3
4. Tullid video 4

My question though, is this, as I'm reassembling:
I lowered and locked the roof rails so everything will be nice and straight and aligned as a locktite and tighten the bolts.
Although I just cleaned and lubed everything up, and everything moves notably easier and without the old squeaks, I'm seeing that I can only push the front forward this far, which leaves a 10.2mm gap measured with my calipers (it's even on both sides):

If I unfold the soft top over this, I could see how possibly the soft top itself covers the gap - but I'm skeptical.
I would have thought the front header would have pushed up tight.

Does anyone know, before I reattach the soft top itself?
Is this right and I'm good to reattach?
I'd hate to find something was missed and take it apart again.

Thanks.

 

It does look like there's more room in the track for it to move forward and down a bit...
I had tightened these screws all the way (circled). Is that possibly what sets the gap? Are those adjustable stops?

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Although I can see the threads , it's hard for me to see if there's something behind them striking them. I'll try to investigate.

 

Ok I don't think that's what it is, since nothing slides up behind those screws (although THAT begs the question "what are those screws for?").

I wonder if this is because the mechanisms are now both ”locked", although they shouldn't be for where they are. I can slide them forward and back but I noticed the carriage arms aren't up, they are down, so when I push this back it isn't higher than the roof brace back there.

This is all the higher I can push it, regardless of the position of the actual roof locks up front:


Does anyone know how to unlock these so they rise up?

I suspect they aren't supposed to lock until they get fully forward, and would lock/unlock automatically if they were (note I didn't do any repair on the left side and it's behaving the same), but they are in the locked position BEHIND where they are supposed to be, so they won't move forward.

Anyone know what to poke or pull at to unlock them, since they are in the "unlocked area" of the track? 🤔

 

I believe I figured this out. I'll have to redo some of my reassembly.

Here's a photo before I took things apart - although they are on the other side of the arm, I marked the position of the two sliders, inside the circle. You can see one is above and one below the track:


In the picture I posted earlier, you can see that apparently when I slid this in, I ended up with both sliders below the track:

So I'll have to unscrew the front portion of the arms again, slide them partially out, and get that part of the arm back on the track.
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Back on track - no pun intended.

 

Just to add info for anyone in the future who's at this point of reassembly-

These five bolts at each corner of the sunroof slider are grouped like this:
Blue circled bolts hold it on.
Red circled bolts can be loosened for alignment, then re-tightened:

In my case, likely since I replaced one sliding carriage with one from another car, and also because my original top wasn't closing to an even gap, I found it helpful to loosen these, set the gap to an even 10mm on both sides where the seam mark is in the rubber, and tightened them back up:


I'm not finding anything here or in the Mini convertible top mechanism PDF on a specific gap distance - I assume I can set the absolute gap by pulling the motor and doing that alignment. But this should get me started at a good even point.

 

I also saw in another thread here where someone was having trouble with their top not closing to an even gap, and they found their sunroof motor gear was clogged up with debris from the fibers of the cables, and once they cleaned that, the gear engaged more solidly with the cables and restored even performance of the top.

...and wow, I found that to be the case with mine - all 108k miles worth, it looks like:

This wire brush removed all the debris easily:

 

Thanks for posting the problem and the fix for future reference by all!

 

Me! That was me!
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...enly-r52s.html

Thanks for the extra details in your posts!

 

So I did successfully get it all back together - but I'm wondering if I still have a little extra gap to tighten up, what do you guys think?



If so, is it just a matter of pulling the motor again, and REALLY pushing this top into the windshield?

I do park outside so the more weather tight the better.
When I was assembling the above though, the pic with the ruler - as I recall, I really was at a hard stop. Is there another way to get a few additional mm?

 

I would test it with a hose and a light sprinkle from a nozzle. What you have might be tight enough.

 

Yep all good, the fabric comes off over time (pipe cleaner stuff) and can gum things up.

The other thing i did with mine of the cables as when replaced sometimes their is a gap and the final close just needs adjusted. By this you undo the motor and press forward on the top. Then bolt back up the motor and try not to move the motor or teeth. Then you have a tight seal.

Back in the day when MINI would warranty this tops after replacement people would get a whistle noise and that's how you adjust.