Hi again,
I have had a couple of people give me their opinion and it seems the whole soft top has been taken out and repaired once before and replaced. A couple of parts each side have been re-fabricated and guess that everything was working fine before.
I have some pictures: https://mega.nz/#F!xxFyzQqR!XXx2r2tLG_c_1gqgyoWJRg
Forgive my terminology, however it looks like one piston bar has snapped. Also, looks like there's a break at a weak spot at the brackets each side.
Today, the top actually nearly completed the process getting to the part where the top is almost all inside the car, then the cover comes down but cannot close.
When closed the top, everything seems to work great in reverse however the window falls down quite quickly onto the cover (I'm guess this motion should be quite smooth?).
Chris