Soooo.... a mini projected reared it's ugly head last night. A month or so ago, I finally managed to source the missing right roof release catch and installed it. The problem was that it wiggled around when operating the roof release. Nothing I could do would keep it in place. Last night, I tried opening the roof and the right side would not budge. I ended up having to remove the C-pilllar trims (removing the engine relay panel as well) in order to release my roof.
Once I got the roof released, I pulled off the catch and examined the roof area where it attaches. There are 2 caged nuts that hold the catch on: one on top and one on the inside. The one on the inside was the culprit...nothing I did would get it to tighten down properly. The PO had made a complete pig's ear of that part of the roof. I assume the roof catch had broken so he did some hogging out and other ill-conceived mods to allow him to SCREW down the top using a sheet metal screw. Whatever he did screwed up both caged nuts. The top one was usable, but the side one...not so much.
So I pulled them out, frighteningly easily. They were in horrible shape.
Luckily (or so I thought), I have a rediscovered nutsert tool, so I decided to have a go at putting some 1/4"/20 nutserts in to replace the caged nuts.
The nutserts went in with no drama.
Unfortunately, the 1/4"/20 screws wouldn't fit in the holes of the catch, so I had to drill out the holes, and using a dremel, clearance the area on the side hole to allow for the larger diameter head to clear. This was fiddly and terrifying, grinding and drilling on my precious unobtanium roof catch. But it went well.
However, much to my dismay, I found that the holes no longer lined up. I could line up the top just fine, but the side hole wouldn't line up at all. I think that's why they used caged nuts, as they rotated so that a bolt could be angled in. So I'm screwed.
Then I start thinking....when I pull on the catch, it rotates so that the rear loop of the springs rotates back and hits the side of the C pillar. Why not shim that area to keep it from rotating back? That's what the side screw is supposed to do...to keep the catch from rotating. So I tested out doing this with a nut shimmed behind the loop of the catch and bolted down the top bolt of the catch. That kept it from rotating, thus allowed me to operating the roof release properly. So I JB Welded the nut in place and put it all back together. Now my roof closes and releases with little drama.
tJ