7/29/2004 - IT WORKS!!! IT WORKS!!! The sunroof works!

Periodic project updates with pictures from the restoration of one of our feature cars.

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Dave
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My Cars: 71 Plymouth Road Runner (Project Blue Bird)
71 Satellite Sebring Plus (383/2bbl/auto)
Location: Cleveland, OH
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7/29/2004 - IT WORKS!!! IT WORKS!!! The sunroof works!

Post by Dave » Thu Jul 29, 2004 11:13 pm

No, I'm not excited at all, why? :D Our goal for this evening was to assemble all the sunroof parts and actually give the thing a real test run. Last evening I tested the motors I have just themselves, and was happy to find that both work very well. Here are a few pictures of Billy and I doing the initial timing (alignment) of the cables.

Image

I'm really glad I had taken the time to read through the FSM (a copy I have out of a 72, since the sunroof stuff isn't in the 71 books for some reason) a number of times before attempting this. Really having a good understanding of the parts, and how it goes to gether made it go a lot easier. Not to mention all the advice and help I've gotten from people like Gary & Pam (G-Series).
Image

Here it is, with the door in and all the way closed. Still some allignment to do, and the cables still need a little timing adjustment, but for a first pass, it's really quite close, and the door slides without a problem.
Image

We ran it manually first, then once we were happpy with how it functioned, we gave it a try with the motor. With my new digital camera, I was able to capture a little video of the action.
http://www.roadrunnernest.com/Project/2 ... unroof.avi

You can see it stop while it's going backwards - that's just due to loosing power for a minute. We just had the wiring rigged up, and holding a lead to each side of a battery. It does run quite nicely back and forth, though there is a lot of room for improvement once we do a better cleaning of the cable runs in the track, and there's still a few places in the track that will need a little tweak to be 100% straight.

I'm just REALLY excited to know that the sunroof really is going to work like we hoped!

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