DIYdad

I'm a little late for this post. I've just had the same issue and came to a resolution today. I made some recordings and hopefully I'll be posting a youtube video on it sometime in the future. For now, I'll try to describe what I had to do in case someone else comes here. My initial thought was mentioned above, cut the hoop to release the top. Being somewhat pragmatic I wanted to know how much harm I was doing myself and researched the cost of a replacement. I literally couldn't find one... anywhere... at any price, so that option was off the table. I began to contemplate how to remove the "hoop" in place, and this was my resolution: First, I used a short (about 1/2" long) #2 phillips bit and a 1/4" combo wrench with ratcheting action on the closed end to take the three screws out of the metal "hoop" or catch in the rear. This was a long and difficult process, I had to use a finger on one hand to force pressure against the bit so it would seat into the screw, and with the other hand I had to turn the ratcheting wrench to loosen the screws. The screws are held by nuts that are kept in place by the metal surrounding the nut, so instead of the screw coming out, the nut is driven inward and starts spinning freely (or it least that was my impression). To pull the nuts back into position so they won't turn freely, I used wedges of wood (a small piece of 2x4 on it's side, make sure you put a cloth between the wood and the painted surface) with wood shims to push the 5th bow upward and maintain tension between the "hoop" and the top (5th bow). Once the wedges are in place you should be able to look in the gap where the "hoop" base is located and see that it is pulled taught so the screws again have pressure on them to pull the nuts into place. Continue loosening and adding shims until the screws are out. My car is a 2004, and at first I was convinced something was locking the 5th bow in place and it couldn't be manually pulled up. However, I found that under constant, forceful pressure the bow started to slowly move and I eventually brought it to a 90 degree angle to the storage cover. At this point I tried to manually release the storage cover using the emergency release cables, but to no avail. In fact, I broke one of the cables, and was quite disheartened fearing a trip to the dealer was inevitable. Hoping for a miracle I began prodding a large flat-head screwdriver around the latch mechanism that held the "hoop" in a locked state. With the screwdriver to the rear of the latch (on the back edge of the latching mechanism, the side facing the rear of the car), and with the tip of the screwdriver closer to the passenger side, but leaning, or angled with the handle toward the driver side, I hit something that released the latch and I was able to remove the "hoop". Once the hoop was removed the top became operational again. At that point I was able to use the top control button on the dash to open the storage cover and gain access to the underside of the storage cover where the access door for the latch mechanism is. I followed the guidelines for service bulletin NTB03-122, (https://f01.justanswer.com/exptech2015/500d3c46-c93a-40a5-a523-1cfece4434c5_5th_bow.pdf ) lubricating the moving parts and adjusting the auto-closure wire. These were not solutions for me. I surmised that my problem was either a bad 5th bow closure motor, or the switch was bad that was supposed to signal the motor. Because my car had been sitting for three months during an engine rebuild I felt the 5th bow closure motor may have become corroded during the stagnation, and gave it several light taps with a socket extension and hammer. To my utter surprise this resolved my issue. I have run the top through several cycles and it is working correctly. If it fails again I'll try tapping it, but I fully expect this is the first evidence that the unit is failing and the 5th bow closure motor will need to be replaced in the near future. I hope this helps. Hopefully the visual aids in the video I'll post with offer further assistance.