Is yours missing completely or did it just fall down inside the box because the hinge piece broke? When that end breaks it can make it appear as though the door is missing entirely. Hill Engineering makes a beautiful replacement for the fragile original plastic piece.
Thanks for all the response guys. Bruce: I'm guessing, yes! What's strange is I don't see the plastic piece. It's almost like the connection for that part has been capped. Curious. Makes me wonder if I have the actuator? I'll post a photo(s) tomorrow so you can see what I'm talking about. Mike: No, the piece isn't sitting inside the box. I could only be so lucky! Yes, Ricambi sells a pretty cool upgraded metal part. Tim: Good for you I have 33 on the roof ... of my house. Wade: We seem to be drifting off topic..
I didn't use the heat or ac much on my 95 spider, but one day I started to hear this clicking sound for about 10 seconds on start up coming from the the dash area. I found the black plastic drive shaft broken off from the door. With some research on this site I went ahead and purchased the hill replacement part from Ricambi, unfortunately though, I still had the clicking sound. I decided to open up the actuator and I found stripped gears inside, hence the sound. I found a new part on e-bay, and now everything works great. I thing most of the problems stem from the high weight of the door. I seem to remember it being made from about 10 or 11 gauge steel, or about 1/8" thick. When the door is up, it puts a large strain on the actuator/ door drive train. Maybe someone will come up with an aluminum or plastic door replacement. Good luck.
It is not the weight of the door at all. The breakage of the drive shaft and stripping of the gears is caused by the very high stress caused by the motor being stalled in the fully open or fully closed position because there is no overcurrent or other type of circuitry to cut off the current to the motor. It always stays under power. The solution is adding limit switches to cut the power to the motor when reaching fully closed or fully open position.
