Hi Shipkiller, I hope you don't mind me getting in touch. Like many others I have made use of your great walk through this week in order to replace the motor on my e85 soft top due to water ingress. Whilst doing the motor I opted to purchase a second hand roof from a 2004 vehicle to replace the worn one off my 2008 vehicle!? yep - true story! anyway the replacement roof on the face of things looks identical.
To cut a long story short I have got the hydraulic motor working fine with the 2004 roof via direct contact with the battery, both raising and dropping very smoothly. With that I sealed the motor housing and fitted into the vehicle.
After connecting all relevant wires to vehicles loom, I lodged something in the microswitch in the boot ready for a test. Initially when the pressing the open button the light in the cab dimmed as if there was a short circuit etc but there was no movement. This didn't happen again, following this when the soft top was put in the up position and the unlock button was pressed the upper latches unlock, and a solid red light is present but there is no roof movement, just a faint relay click from the glove box. If i manually move the roof down and then press the same unlock button again the front electric motor again wurrs and the roof locks into place as it should and all lights go off. However no window movement at either of the above stages.
The close button does absolutely nothing, no window movement, no latch movement and no hydraulic motor activity regardless of roof position.
Before removal of old roof all electrics seemed fine, roof would unlatch without problem, motor would try and lower but was very weak, then would lock down, and would attempt to rise when close button was pressed and would lock in correctly if helped up manually, windows would also drop and rise correctly.
I am absolutely at a loss, do you think the sensors may be different between the different ages of roof? I am struggling to work out how the motor receives power as the wire which receives the motor cable seems to just attach to the top of the hydraulic ram. I am loathed to take it all out and swap to the other roof as it took my two hours to seal up the motor housing etc
I have had a good look through the z4 forum and cannot find any comparable symptoms and hence all suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Many Thanks In Advance
My email address is
[email protected]
Best Regards
Richard