Penthouse Top - Un-Even Lifting/Lowering

[Petravic]

I've got a 2013 E350 with an electric powered Penthouse Top. Last week I raised it with the front passenger hook latched (no beer's involved i'm happy to say, but that only makes me feel a coors light better about it...) and bending the front passenger bow. Thanks to all those that came before me, i followed the process to straighten out the bow (seriously...this was a huge help 👍🏼!). As far as i can tell, it's again a good match to the other side and all 4 of my bows all have a little bowing/bend in them.

The top is nice and even when fully raised. The issue I have now is that the passenger side raises more slowly than the drivers side, with the whole top tilted during the lift. At the very end of the lift, the drivers side piston will fully extend first and then the passenger side piston catches up a few seconds later. it's uneven, side to side, through most of the lifting and lowering processes - the passenger side drops to the roof first and extends to full height last.

Most of what i've read on the forum seems to be un-eveness front to back when a bow gets bent so this confuses me and i haven't found any other comments with a similar side to side un-eveness after this happening. Any ideas on what still needs to be adjusted to get a side to side evenness?

[Twoxentrix]

If I recall correctly, if you have any lift deviation on an electric top, you have to fully ‘raise and lower’ the Top 4 or 5 times (one after the other) for it to readjust itself. Unless someone else chimes in here, You may want reach out to one of the Sportsmobile Shops for confirmation.

[bigriver]

I'm interested in this as well. My power lift top has always lifted slightly slower on the driver's side compared to the other. It doesn't really seem to mind though... we've lifted and dropped the top 100's of times over the last 20 years with two Sea Kayaks loaded with gear up there.

[boywonder]

FWIW........SMB uses Linak actuators for the power top.

These actuators are commonly used in medical devices like wheelchairs, tables and gurneys etc.

Linak has a module when more than one actuator is used to keep them synchronized. Going from memory, light loads don't necessarily need this module, and SMBs don't use them for $$ savings.

..not that this helps anyone, but perhaps some interesting trivia

[BroncoHauler]

Likely not related to your issue, but this is also a good time to safely inspect the shoulder bolts that tie the diagonal arms together. They have a history of wearing to the point where they might shear. If you remove the shoulder bolts, search this forum before starting to make sure that you do it safely.


Herb

[Twoxentrix]

^^^^^in conjunction with^^^^^

Many pop-top owners probably don’t realize they should be (yearly) lubing the tracks the bars slide in, the pivot points where they attach to the roof, along with the cross-bar bolts mentioned by Herb and the shinny tube just below the cross-bar bolts.

[Petravic]

good suggestion....do you have a recommendation for what to use?

[Twoxentrix]

I wipe out the tracks with cloth to get any metal shavings/debris out of the Chanel, then hit it with silicone grease. I’m the 2nd owner, and It was obvious to me this had probably never been done by previous owner since there was a lot of metal debris which came out of the tracks…basically metal to metal every time the top went up or down.
I use a spray silicone to get up inside the area the bars attach to the roof panels, the cross bar bolts & the silver rod - just position an old towel behind to catch any overspray. I do this yearly.
At the same time I also clean the window glass and lube the window zippers with zipper-wax. Lastly, I clean the outside canvas with a marine grade (303 products) canvas cleaner, then their ‘ canvas protector’ directly after.
I suspect the shoulder bolt failures are largely attributed to never receiving any lube - although better bolts would have been prudent in the original build to begin with.

[boywonder]

Unless things have changed SMB uses generic 1/4-20 hex bolts in the pivots....no shoulder screws.

With regular hex bolts, at least one edge of the tubing wall is bearing on the threaded portion of the screw. This has two issues, the sharp edges of the threads eggs out the hole in the crossbar, and as the threads wear away you are left with a small diameter (thread root diameter) that fails. All of the repairs that I have done have the 1/4-20 hex bolts snapped in the threaded part of the fastener.

Shoulder screws have the shoulder bearing on the tubing walls eliminating both of the above issues.

The slot in the channel where the front bar slides should have plastic edge trim on both the top and bottom edges of that slot. If you are seeing metal shavings (not good!!) you may be missing some of that plastic edge trim.

[Petravic]

great advice and thanks for the detail on what you use. i may well have gotten some crud in there during my fix. impressed by your maintenance!!