Any of you guys ever run into this?

Looks like I've got a defective roof close button or at least on half of it. I was getting nervous, seemed like my roof didn't want to open for me. Narrowed it down to the open side of the switch. Rear windows open more easily, but that still feels like I've got to push the switch just right.

Roof? Hard to close the open contact in the switch. I'm even finding that without keeping the pressure just right on the button, the circuit can open midway.

Good news, close works perfectly, key in door works perfectly. That plus a feeling of movement in the switch proves it to the switch.

I'm going in tomorrow, just launching this post in case someone has seen this before, words of wisdom appreciated.

Of course I'll follow-up with the status & fix. Thanks for looking.

BTW being this is about my 100th time removing the shift surrounding, what are the odds I find the little plastic tabs and it goes smoothly? (Never seems to does it? ha ha

John

 

Good news. Relatively easy fix.

Its the old 25 yr old plastics. The roof switch is secured in place by 25+ yr old plastic and - its housed in, guess what, yes a 25 yr old plastic insert - the horizontal plastic insert at the top of the shifter's wood surround.

Turns out the insert is glued in place. Glue started to deteriorate causing tiny separation over by the roof button that I press 2+ times a day, everyday. This was compounded by the roof switches' forward & aft snap in place plastic positioners / holders cracked. This allowed motion of the switch in response to me pressing open or closed

So, everytime I pressed close, the switch began to shift position away and if I got lucky it'd close the window up contacts, got real lucky the "roof close "contacts" would connect too (for a while at least)!
So, my job was to remove any flex in the black plastic insert, then figure out a way to secure the roof close switch in place without accidentally gluing the switch pad your finger touches.

First I epoxyed the surround in place along the edge where it touches the wood. This removed flex. then I judiciously applied epoxy to the switch, leaving a way for me to pull it out if needed down the road. (It gets real dirty dusty down there, its gonna work its way into the switch someday I bet)

I was worried I had a bad switch, so this is a good thing.

The photo shows my handwriten note of the switch's part number in case any of us ever need to chase one down. LJA6229BA. AK26 is on a line below that.

John