First Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. May Ferry bring you all nice gifts.
I have a 2000 986 with right at 100K miles, have owned it for about 2 years now (also have other Porsches: '73 911, '73 914 project, '83 948 project, '86 928S, '88 924S).
Top has made some noise from the passenger side since I got it.
Today (80+ degrees in Austin), decided to put top down and it failed part way in the retraction process.
With help of a friend I managed to get the top down fully, got it home, opened it up part way (as if you were doing top engine work -- with the additional complexity that I have a glass rear window on a 3 rib top) and discovered one of the top guy cables (passenger side) had sheared, replaced it, and the top appears to be functional again.
However, it still makes noise so I decided to poke around a bit and understand the mechanics/geometry of how this top works.
On my inspection, I found that the motor arm-to-tonneau cover arm pivot has what looks like a plastic or rubber bushing/washer that has all but failed.
See attached picture.
Could this be the source of my noise (making that passenger side top motor work hard), and if so, is the fix really as easy as it appears: simply replace that washer/bushing?
Is this as easy as it looks? Or once I get that pivot bolt out, will I be in a world of hurt, e.g., not be able to get it back in again?
Does anyone know where I can get that washer/bushing?
