Fixing A4 cabrio roof storage box

[ricola]

Hi Guys,

On my 53 reg cabrio the roof storage box does not fully lift up, the first half of travel of the lever is just slack, you can manually lift the box into the top position so it isn't jammed or anything. It feels like a cable has come off a pulley or similar and I can't imagine it is rocket science to fix, I certainly don't fancy fitting a whole new roof box!

So, has anybody done this as a DIY job? Where abouts are the pulleys to check? I took off the trim panel around the top of the boot and the cables seem to disappear behind the side boot liner.

Any help would be appreciated, I've tried searching all over the place but I only seem to find people who have had it done under warranty or results about roof boxes!

Cheers,
Rich

[randall977]

It's a good question! I got this image off VAGcat - might be helpful???

863750.jpg

[ricola]

Thanks for the pic, at least I now know the cables loop back up. I think I'll have to try and work out how to remove the side pieces for better access and see if I can figure it out. Apart from the price I'm reluctant to buy another one that may fail in the same way, I'll just re-engineer the bit that failed..
Cheers,
Rich

[blackpool1974]

Hi,

I had the same problem last month, took me 5 hours to fix.

It will be 1 of 2 things

The cord behind the lever has a recess it might of jumped out of it, meaning there is no tension on the metal cord to pull the pulley !!

What happened to me was the metal cord had come off the pulley behind the left hand side boot liner. There is a black cover take that off and you will be able to see from there whether it has come off the pulley. If it has, it might be tangled and bent, you will have to straighten the cable or else it will never sit properly in the pulley, the pulley on the left controls the lifting of both sides of the roof box, if you do attempt to mess with the pulleys, the left side cord and the right side cord are wound opposite

Before you do anything you will need to take off the plastic cover next to the lever and also unscrew a couple of screws behind the lever to rule out th

From what I know now I would of probably took it to the dealer, it is an intensive job.

Sorry for the garbled response, just finished a 14 hour night shift

[ricola]

Thanks for the first hand experience, it definitely helps and hopefully there is nothing actually broken, as I supect! When I took the top panel off I did check that the cable was still properly routed at the end of the lever so I guess it will be something behind the side panel as you suggest. The problem with a dealer is that they would definitely charge a hefty whack for labour and even then would still fit/charge for a new box assembly.
One thing, is it best to take the side panel off with the box in the raised or lowered position?
I'll try to take some pics when I get around to doing it as it is such a common problem with very little information out there...
Cheers, Rich

[blackpool1974]

From memory you will need to take the roof box out anyway if you need to mess with the pulleys, as the roof box connects to the pulleys via a cog on each side of the car

[ricola]

OK, I fixed my mechanism today, took a good couple of hours in the end as there wasn't just one thing broken but several!

Here's a quick rundown of what I did:

1. First remove the rear part of the storage box (item 20 on diagram above), you can flex it to get it off the two pivots (item 21) and then the lower section slides forwards out of the rails that it slides in.
   
2. Remove the two plastic clips that hold the side trim panel on, one by the storage box and the other by the top hinge. Then remove the side trim panel. It is tricky as there are several blind clips around the rear area.
   
3. Remove the mechanism cover (item 4) by the 4 screws
   
4. pull back the carpet trim off the shelf along the left side, this gives access to the two screws that join the side section which goes up and down (item 2) and the main shelf and then remove them, I wedged something under the main shelf to keep it up.
   
5. Then remove the 4 screws (items 10, two on each side) which hold the main part of the shelf that moves up and down and the rails that it slides in.
   
6. You now have access to the cables and geared mechanism and it should be evident what is broken.

The parts I found that were broken were as follows:

• the geared part on the back of the side section had broken off at all three screw bosses (epoxied it back on)
• the cover that holds the main moving gear (item 7) had its tabs broken off (self tapper screw through the centre to hold it back on)
• The main cable end retention plastic section had broken so the cable slid free when the main lever operated (I fitted a jubilee clip around the cable in a suitable position so that it couldn't get pulled through)
• lug for screw near item 17 had broken (epoxied back on)

People seem to have several other failure modes as noted, most often to do with the cable coming off its guides somewhere. I hope this helps others!

Rich

[Johnwil]

Rich this has been a great help on my A4 cabriolet however can I ask if all the procedure is done from inside the boot or do you have to access the storage box from above whilst the roof is open.
johnwil

[fourringsrus]

I had the same issue as the above contributor and I accessed from in the boot, I am not the biggest guy in the world so a large chap might find it tight going, but do-able from boot

Stuart

[Johnwil]

Thanks Stuart I'll give it another go