So went camping in fort Bragg during thanksgiving encountered some good amount of rain and wind. I found I have a few leaks kind of bummed about that.. When the weekend was over I dropped the penthouse and went home. I wanted to dry the top out some so when I got home I popped the top up. First thing I noticed was it didn't go up as easy as it usually would. Then when I wanted to drop the top it didn't want to go down at all. I really had to fight it so much so one of the handles broke off. Any ideas on what the problem could be? I drive this van daily so don't want to get stuck with this top up for to long.
Something got bound up/broken/jammed in the tracks.. so you'll need to raise the top, prop it up with 2x4s or something, and then access the tracks under the fabric in the rails.
There's a few good threads around here with pictures of how the tracks/springs/blocks work, so search for those and compare to yours.
Also, in general, try not to force the top! If it won't go up or down, there's a reason, and forcing it will generally make it worse!
No idea what the problem was. Got all ready to work on it this weekend and it was working fine. Checked the rails for anything that should not be there and nothing.Springs looked good as well as the pivot . The top went up and down many times and was smooth as always.