Failure of electric roof

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John Boy
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Joined: Tue 26 Oct, 2004 07:10
Posts: 950

  Z3 roadster 2.8
Location: Benson

Failure of electric roof

Post by John Boy »

Recently my roof failed to operate, so I thought I'd share the cause!

The first symptom was when lowering using the motor, the roof went back a few inches, then the motor stopped and it went the rest of the way down with gravity.

As I was on my way out on the way to work I didn't have time to look at this straight away, so when I got to work I just released the pressure from the hydraulic pump and raised the roof by hand.

When I had more time I checked the obvious: Fuses and Relays. All seemed fine.

After reseating the fuses and relays I tried to operate the roof, this time taking more note of what was happening.
I opened the roof to make the micro switch operate and pressed the button. Great I thought, the motor operated. But only for about an inch of movement!
Ok, pulled roof back so the switch wasn't operated and tried the motor again and I could hear it trying. This is obviously wrong and indicates a short in the micro switch circuit.
I reasoned that with this indicating a short and the stopping of the roof retracting possibly indicating an open circuit, there was more than likely a bit of dodgy wiring. So before getting a multi meter out etc, I had a good look around and tracing the wiring from the swich, down the frame I found:

Image
Wiring 1

Removing the tie-wrap that held the wire to the frame, I got a better look:

Image
Wiring 2

Them stripping back the sleeving:

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Wiring 3

I trimmed out the frayed wires, stripped the insulation and used an inline crimp to repair them. I then wrapped around electrical insulation tape for added protection, before securing back to the frame.

Roof now works perfectly!
John Boy
2.8 Z3
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