litespeedone

For years my 1999 clk 320 sunroof would not close completely and would unsync. It would take a few tries and resyncs to finally close but the problem would recur. After reading some of the posts under "Sunroof problem" posted some years ago in this category I decided to try to come up with a fix. There are two levers on the driver's and passenger's side of the sunroof toward the front of the sunroof that operate a wind deflector. When the sunroof moves forward it depresses the levers and moves the wind deflector downward and out of the way before the sunroof passes over the wind deflector and closes. On my car the levers were not being depressed far enough downward to completely lower the wind deflector before sunroof would collide with the deflector causing the sunroof to stop abruptly and unsync . To fix the problem, I removed the two levers (unclip a plastic retainer on each of the levers and move the levers rearward and remove), put four layers of electrical tape on the surface of the levers. The layers of tape provide extra downward movement of the levers as the sunroof slides over the levers, pushing the wind deflector downward earlier and out of the way before the sunroof comes in contact with the wind deflector. I resynced the sunroof as described in previous posts and the sunroof works perfectly now. It was about a 10 minute fix. Attached is a photo of the levers with the tape added.


clk 320 sunroof wind deflector levers (left and right)

Capt. Speirs

Nice job, I had the same issue with my CLK 430 roof. I did it a little different, same result. The pins that the wind deflector connects to the arms seemed a bit low so I bent them ever so slightly upward and that fixed mine.

litespeedone

Thanks for sharing that solution. I did think of doing that but couldn't readily figure out how to get the wind deflector out. If the tape comes off for some reason ill try that next.

convicted

I already did a writeup on this. There is a much easier solution (IMO).

Here's the thread I made (w/pics): https://mbworld.org/forums/clk-class...wind-flap.html

Hopefully it helps.

litespeedone

Thanks for sharing your solution. I missed your writeup when I was looking for a solution. When I had the levers out I tried to bend one by hand but it didn't want to bend and i didn't want to try more force for fears of braking it but i will do that if my solution doesn't work -seeing that you were successful and as you say it doesn't need to be bent very much.

convicted

Yeah. I'm talking millimeters at most. If you bend them as gently as possible, just a little bit at a time (and test functionality as you go), you should be fine. I put a fair amount of force on mine without causing any damage, so I know they can handle it. Just err on the side of caution (and mind the glass).

Capt. Speirs

You don't have to remove the deflector, just use a small screwdriver and apply some pressure on both sides equally and check if it lowers enough to clear the sliding roof.

johnathan1

I am currently trying to fix this issue, and I removed the sunroof glass to see the "tabs" you guys are talking about (found them finally). It looks like one of my tabs is missing it's plastic "cap" and that is causing the clearance issue. I need to bend the arm at LEAST 1-2mm to allow it to clear, but it looks very fragile, and past experience tells me that this particular piece is made of "pot metal" or zinc die cast or whatever and is VERY brittle. What I do not know is whether or not HEAT would make it more pliable perhaps?

litespeedone

An update to my original post....at almost one year, the tape is still in place and I have not had a problem with my sunroof closing since doing the tape repair.

quik55

Always great to seen an update. Unfortunately it's pretty much impossible to see where the electrical tape was applied.

kinda funny that guy was a dick about already providing a solve.

Similarly am not able to understand exactly what he did at all. Is he bending the arms up I assume?

will look into this!