SoftTop Failure

S

Shipkiller

Lifer
Walked out from the office and tried to open the top, no go. Opened the trunk, and found my tool bag had moved the 'convertible top compartment floor' up a little bit. Moved the tool back out of the way and now the top opens.

Drove home with the top down. Shut the top, washed the car.

Then I tried to open the top. No go. Just had a orange light. No relay clicks, or other noises. The windows did not even move. :o

Cycled the 'floor' up and down a couple of times but no dice. Ok, now lets find out whats up. Starting to get just a little bit worried due to all of the posts about bad electrical motors....

Checked all three fuses. They are good.
Unlocked the front of the top manually, hit the red release in the trunk and opened the top up. It opens very easy so it's not a binding problem or foreign debris problem in the mechanism.

Now to see what happens, I press the close button. Hey, the top closes normally. Ok, it's not the motor.... :D

It has to be a microswitch. Ok, where is that 'convertible top compartment floor' switch.

Went looking in my BMW shop manual. Found it. But now it is getting too dark to work.

I guess my Thanksgiving will be spent NOT watching football or playing on the computer, it will be fixing the Z.

I have PDF's of the removal and replacement (right out of the shop manual) but I have to go figure out how to post them...
 
WLH said:
Have a happy Thanksgiving... :P
Click to expand...
lolabove.gif
...Really, you know we care Ship. Please let us know when you get it fixed in the event any of us have the same issue. You have a warranty yes?
 
My car is out of warranty, but I bought an aftermarket warranty ( after lots of research). I don't want to use it just yet. It is too soon and I don't want to raise any eyebrows about this being an existing problem..

It has to be a switch.

How to I post PDF's . I have all the shop material. I just print them out in PDF format.

I would put them on my home webserver, but I would have to do some Apache reconfigs and don't want to do that yet.
 
Shipkiller said:
How to I post PDF's . I have all the shop material. I just print them out in PDF format.

I would put them on my home webserver, but I would have to do some Apache reconfigs and don't want to do that yet.
Click to expand...
If you e-mail them to me I will host them and send you the link to post... :thumbsup:

[email protected]
 
Ok WLH.

Let me try to get them in some coherent format.

I may just have to play with my Apache configs and host them myself later on.
 
Shipkiller said:
Ok WLH.

Let me try to get them in some coherent format.

I may just have to play with my Apache configs and host them myself later on.
Click to expand...
Ok...I will be happy to host them until you can. Just send me PM when you e-mail them as I don't check that account everyday.
 
Shipkiller said:
Walked out from the office and tried to open the top, no go. Opened the trunk, and found my tool bag had moved the 'convertible top compartment floor' up a little bit. Moved the tool back out of the way and now the top opens.

Drove home with the top down. Shut the top, washed the car.

Then I tried to open the top. No go. Just had a orange light. No relay clicks, or other noises. The windows did not even move. :o

Cycled the 'floor' up and down a couple of times but no dice. Ok, now lets find out whats up. Starting to get just a little bit worried due to all of the posts about bad electrical motors....

Checked all three fuses. They are good.
Unlocked the front of the top manually, hit the red release in the trunk and opened the top up. It opens very easy so it's not a binding problem or foreign debris problem in the mechanism.

Now to see what happens, I press the close button. Hey, the top closes normally. Ok, it's not the motor.... :D

It has to be a microswitch. Ok, where is that 'convertible top compartment floor' switch.

Went looking in my BMW shop manual. Found it. But now it is getting too dark to work.
Click to expand...

Problem has been fixed, temporarily.

It was the 'convertible top compartment floor' switch. This switch is only used to LOWER the top. Not to raise it.

Removed the floor panel and the switch. Before I removed the switch I actuated the switch and had my trusty helper (wife) press the 'down' button. Works like a charm.

100_0222.jpg


Heres the switch assembly.

100_0214.jpg


Another view showing the actual switch.

100_0215.jpg


The back of the switch.

100_0216.jpg


Heres the floor panel out of the car. Notice the switch actuator nub on the bottom of the picture.

100_0220.jpg


As you can see in this next picture how the floor panel nub rides in the recess. But looking closer, you can see that in this instance the floor tab cannot hit the switch. The actual switch is not adjustable on its mount.
The tab on the floor panel does not appear to have any damage to it. Something is not right here.

100_0219.jpg


My thoughts are that there is a removable tab that attaches to floor panel tab that does the actual pushing of the switch. Or there is a piece of plactic that is attached to the switch housing that has broken off.
I looked all over the car and in my tool bag to see if I could find it. No dice. It's gone.

To make it work, I took a single strand out of a 12 gauge stranded wire, about 3/4" long and made a jumper. Put the jumper in the switch connector. I can now use the top normally.
I put the floor panel back in the car but not the switch assembly.
I will have to go up to BMW tomorrow to see what piece really goes there.
 
It's a really poor picture, but this is the nub (shelf still in the package). Doesn't look like your missing anything.

 
look in your trunk closely, the little leaf-spring that actuates the switch has come off. Its about 1 inch long and looks like the silver clip used on an ink pen to clip to your shirt pocket. when you lower the shelf it presses this leaf-spring against the button and the top cannot be lowered, when you raise the shelf the leaf-spring is released and the top can operated. Click on the link below its number 7


http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do ... g=61&fg=35
 
After detailing my car over at the Navy Auto Hobby shop, I stopped off at one of the local BMW dealers, buying a new switch ($31.00). When I got home, I was taking all my detailing crap out of the trunk and low an behold, the missing switch spring.

DOES EVERYTHING WITH THE BMW LABEL HAVE TO COST SO MUCH? $31.00 is way over priced, but it is a must have.
 
Just goes to prove the old saying "If you want to find something...Quit looking for it"
 
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