645ci Convertible roof question

[voss69]

Hello....I drove today with the roof down came home and wanted to close the roof and suddenly i see this plastic cover. Never seen it before and once i realized
where it belongs i noticed the corners of it are broken off and even if it would be intact it wouldn't fit into place anymore since the black plastic piece which sits loose is to high to get the
cover back in place. The roof works fine and i wonder what happened and how i can fix it again......???

[M5Rick]

Something behind the black plastic piece pushed the cover out, you tried pushing it in..

[voss69]

yes i thought the same thing. but below the black plastic piece is something solid metal. it doesnt move at all. i did a lot of research before and after this post and i found out this red plastic cover is where the emergency crank opening for the rear window is located. under it is the roof motor. everything is solid and dont move. I decided to just glue it back into place. I also found a way for it to almost be level to the two other vents. yes i take my chance that if i have to use the emergency crank i have to break the cover out but its broken anyway. I assume it just happened because the car is 19 years old and the plastic is getting brittle...maybe it was a bad bump on the road i hit....i am not worried anymore about roof or rear window movement because of it being broken. It is what it is...lol

[M5Rick]

if you did have to remove it then something like evo-stick used sparingly would be better if you did have to snuck it out to get access to crank roof in case of motor failure, I wouldn't use super glue.