I have recently bought a 84 944, the only thing that I am unhappy about is that I can not get the roof off. The car did not come with a manual and the previous owner told be that it would not come off. To me it does not make any sense. The roof will go into the "up" position when you press the button...but he said that is all it ever did and it would not coem off. Can anyone help?? Summer is near and the rof must come off. Thanks to anyone who post...I AM A VERY PROUD OWNER...and I bought the car by doing research here...so really I owe it all to the community...THANK YOU!!

 

With the key in the first position (acc), depress the sunroof button (down) to pull the little arms down out of the sunroof.

 

There are these nylon gears that strip pretty easily. Once that happens the roof can raise unevenly or not move enough and etc. The gears cost about $8.00 each and take around an hour to replace. That may not be your problem but they seem to fail more often than the other sunroof components. You might also check the Main Sunroof Relay and Limit Switch 1. A failure of either of these components will cause exactly the problem you describe. Check the drive cable too. Hope that helps.

 

i don't believe the 84 had the 2 fiber gears but a single metal one.

if it pushes up you should be able to unlatch the front latches and lift it out.[&:]

 

Yeah you are right, the early models had a different system. They operated a bit differently too since the ignition only has two positions right? The arms retract when the key is in the off position instead of the accessory position? If the roof goes up and down OK but the arms don't retract the problem sounds like a limit switch (limit switch one - same as a late model cars?). On my cars the problem has always been the plastic gears so I've never had to look any deeper. Both had broken gears when I bought them.