Help with an open sky sunroof

boustie

New Member
I've joined the forum as all my Google searches end up here

I've just bought an A2 with the OSS and would really like to fix myself

I've removed the headlining and blind and first glass. The left hand guide that attaches the glass is loose and has come detached from the cable as shown in pic.

My question is do I need to remove the whole sunroof to get to the cables?.

Thankyou for any pointers.
 

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Speak to Paul (@depronman) and @Kleynie, both of this parish. Paul is a real craftsman when it comes to engineering bits needed to repair stuff including OSS components, and Kleynie has started A2oc's house "repair / replace" service for OSS in the past year.
 
Hi,
Yes you do, the whole roof needs to come loose and then the rear fixed panel removed, before taking out the cables and removing the moving panels. It's not an easy job I'm afraid, and it has to be aligned afterwards both separately from the car and while it is in the car, which requires a lot of patience and know how. Give it a go, but if you change your mind, I offer a repair service for the roofs, so just get in touch.
Thanks,

Adam
 
I've joined the forum as all my Google searches end up here

I've just bought an A2 with the OSS and would really like to fix myself

I've removed the headlining and blind and first glass. The left hand guide that attaches the glass is loose and has come detached from the cable as shown in pic.

My question is do I need to remove the whole sunroof to get to the cables?.

Thankyou for any pointers.
It's your lucky day, do you realise you live 'next door' to Paul.

Andy
 
Hi,
Yes you do, the whole roof needs to come loose and then the rear fixed panel removed, before taking out the cables and removing the moving panels. It's not an easy job I'm afraid, and it has to be aligned afterwards both separately from the car and while it is in the car, which requires a lot of patience and know how. Give it a go, but if you change your mind, I offer a repair service for the roofs, so just get in touch.
Thanks,

Adam
Thankyou for the reply and information, I'm willing to have a go so appreciate that.
 
While I will never attack anyone who wants to try to help themselves, in this case I really do think you will quickly get in over your head - no pun intended. PLEASE at the very least have in depth conversations with both @depronman and @Kleynie as both are friendly and helpful and have a vast knowledge. I do think in this case use their services rather than risk making the roof unusable or worse jammed open or broken panels.
 
Bloody hell, couldn't have made it up.. Thanks
There is a lot more to fixing the OSS that at first thoughts.
The main failure point is the nylon connector that connects the cable to the front truck, this in all honesty is simply a crap piece of design on the OSS
Audi (or more accurately the Co that Audi bought the OSS from) realised this design fault, but it was much too late as thousands of OSS had already been sold, the fix was a couple of metal plates that are screwed to the front truck and have teeth that grip the cable. These are still sold as 'OSS repair parts', but have a fundamental design flaw in that the OSS design transfers load from the cable to the truck via the cable pulling and pushing the nylon connector which as the other end of the connector attached to the rear foot of the front truck. So the load is push / pull from the cable.
When the nylon joiner breaks (which they all will due to the poor material selection) the Audi repair plates connect the cable to the truck in a totally different manor, the result is that the load on the cable is now a side load (as against the design intent of an end load)
Ultimately this will cause the cable to be pushed sideways against the aluminium rails (which it was never designed to tolerate) and as such once the hard anodising has been worn of the rails the friction will increase greatly adding much more load into the motor/cable interface which is already a weak point.
This is why my solution to the cable connector fault is to remake the cable ends in brass (instead of nylon), as such the loads are transferred as originally designed.

The other main failure point is the aluminium casting that the motor mounts too, this is made in two halves which are riveted together with pop rivets. For some reason the rivets are 3mm Dia but the holes are 3.4mm Dia, so this allows the two halves to move further apart resulting in the cables to motor mesh gap increasing. I remove the original rivets, increase the hole size to 4mm Dia and rivet with 4mm stainless steel rivets. This ensures that the play between the motor pinion and the cables is reduced to virtually zero, this as a dramatic affect on the 'drive' of the motor to the cables.
I am looking into the replacement of the aluminium castings with a CNC milled part which will eliminate this failure point totally.

As 'Audifan' as stated give the refurbishment of your own OSS some seriorce thought before you jump into it. I bought what I thought was a working OSS which I then found out was a broken sky, but this allowed me to refurbish the OSS in the garage and then fully test it before swapping it into my A2. To strip the OSS from the A2, do the refurb and then refit it all back into the A2 is not possible in a single day, so the A2 would have to be made water tight unless it can be garaged whilst the OSS is removed.

Pop around for a chat some time, there may be other A2 related issues that I can help you with, after all we are almost next door neighbours in the grand scheme of things
Cheers,
Paul
 

There is a lot more to fixing the OSS that at first thoughts.
The main failure point is the nylon connector that connects the cable to the front truck, this in all honesty is simply a crap piece of design on the OSS
Audi (or more accurately the Co that Audi bought the OSS from) realised this design fault, but it was much too late as thousands of OSS had already been sold, the fix was a couple of metal plates that are screwed to the front truck and have teeth that grip the cable. These are still sold as 'OSS repair parts', but have a fundamental design flaw in that the OSS design transfers load from the cable to the truck via the cable pulling and pushing the nylon connector which as the other end of the connector attached to the rear foot of the front truck. So the load is push / pull from the cable.
When the nylon joiner breaks (which they all will due to the poor material selection) the Audi repair plates connect the cable to the truck in a totally different manor, the result is that the load on the cable is now a side load (as against the design intent of an end load)
Ultimately this will cause the cable to be pushed sideways against the aluminium rails (which it was never designed to tolerate) and as such once the hard anodising has been worn of the rails the friction will increase greatly adding much more load into the motor/cable interface which is already a weak point.
This is why my solution to the cable connector fault is to remake the cable ends in brass (instead of nylon), as such the loads are transferred as originally designed.

The other main failure point is the aluminium casting that the motor mounts too, this is made in two halves which are riveted together with pop rivets. For some reason the rivets are 3mm Dia but the holes are 3.4mm Dia, so this allows the two halves to move further apart resulting in the cables to motor mesh gap increasing. I remove the original rivets, increase the hole size to 4mm Dia and rivet with 4mm stainless steel rivets. This ensures that the play between the motor pinion and the cables is reduced to virtually zero, this as a dramatic affect on the 'drive' of the motor to the cables.
I am looking into the replacement of the aluminium castings with a CNC milled part which will eliminate this failure point totally.

As 'Audifan' as stated give the refurbishment of your own OSS some seriorce thought before you jump into it. I bought what I thought was a working OSS which I then found out was a broken sky, but this allowed me to refurbish the OSS in the garage and then fully test it before swapping it into my A2. To strip the OSS from the A2, do the refurb and then refit it all back into the A2 is not possible in a single day, so the A2 would have to be made water tight unless it can be garaged whilst the OSS is removed.

Pop around for a chat some time, there may be other A2 related issues that I can help you with, after all we are almost next door neighbours in the grand scheme of things
Cheers,
Paul
Thank you for the reply. I didnt expect so much response.
Be in touch very soon

Thanks again
 
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