soft top mechanical and electrical debugging

I'm sorting out the soft top not working on the '96 355 I bought a while ago. I bought it knowing the soft top didn't work (was converted to manual operation) and the wiring for it had been bypassed and disconnected. The seats had their own wiring and switches.

I put in the proper seat switches (luckily whoever did the rewiring didn't cut anything out). So now the power seats work with the switches, but the top doesn't.

The top ECU was not connected when I got the car. I tested the relays in it and they seemed to work. I hooked it back up. That is when the seats came back to life.

If you look at the first picture, you can see what I started with. A connector, #3, that comes from the right side but doesn't reach the left side. A connector on the microswitch, #1, that has no wires on it. So I figured that there might be an extension lead missing from #3 that hooks up to #1. I extended the wires and hooked it up. Didn't help anything. There is a connector, #2, which doesn't go anywhere. Is it supposed to? There is a red wire and a black/brown wire in it. I can't see that there is any place to attach it.

When I release the latch at the headrail, the windows go down about 2" (with the ignition on). But then nothing. When I press the soft top switch I just get beeping. When I try the emergency switch I get nothing at all. The seats don't move (don't know at which point they are supposed to).

I tried putting power directly on the hydraulic motor and it works. I know the ECU could be bad, but I really want to exhaust all other possibilities before spending money on another one that I might not need.

The hydraulic cylinders are not bolted up properly since it was converted to manual. I'm going to hook them up, but that shouldn't have anything to do with it not working now. I do have a question on that though. See the second picture. Is that block supposed to be with the hole at the top, as shown, or rotated around so the hole is at the bottom? The fork on the piston seems to fit it either way.

The last picture. Is that big bracket on the left supposed to be hooked up to something? It just seems to be free to pivot around now. Same with the one on the passenger side.

Oh, one other thing I just remembered. There is a wire running to the parking brake switch, which signals the dash light that the brake is on. At least it should, mine doesn't seem to be working. There is another long wire coming out of the center console that is the same color (orange/black from what I remember) but isn't hooked up anywhere. It is long enough to run over to the parking brake area. Are there 2 wires that should be hooked up to the parking brake switch with the spiders? I was grounding both of them when I was trying the top.

OK, so that is it for now. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Especially on where I go with troubleshooting now. I'm sort of running out of things to try. The fuses on the hydraulic unit are good and I pulled the relays and cleaned the contacts.

Rick

edit: just had another quick run out to the garage after realizing that the solenoid on the block behind the left side top mechanism didn't have any electrical connection. The lead, #2 in my picture, reached to there and plugged in, so that must be where it goes. Didn't seem to help anything though.
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I'm saying it was converted to manual because that is what the previous owner told me. He didn't do it as far as I know, a previous owner did. All I know is that the hydraulic cylinders were unbolted and the wiring was unplugged from the ECU. As far as I know, and hope, no frame or mechanical mods were done.

 

Sure it can. But you don't just sit in the drivers seat like with a Miata. You have to get out and keep going from side to side and moving it a little at a time.

 

When I unlatch it and push it back it doesn't beep, so something is wrong at that stage.

Thank you very much for the pictures. I'll compare them to what I have. Looks like a bunch of stuff was removed.

 

Thank you, but you missed one. The switch in the header rail is the one that triggers the windows to go down, so that one is working with my car. There are 2 more switches in the rear, both on the divers side. One is visible fairly easily at the front (Sx in the documentation). The other is much more hidden at the back of the mechanism (S12). I've testing Sx and it is OK. The other one (S12) I sort of forgot about until I read yelcab's post. Pretty sure this one is hooked up, but I'll have to make sure that it is working, since it seems to be the one that triggers the 2nd stage of operation. At least I have one more thing to look into now.

Rick

edit: Just occurred to me. Maybe with my mechanism not properly connected, when I push the top back (from the front, when unlatching the header rail) it isn't transmitting the movement right to the back to trigger the microswitch. Maybe the link that isn't hooked up is just moving around. I'll have to check that tonight.
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I appreciate any help I can get. Threads like this will hopefully help others later that may have related problems. Didn't mean to sound like I didn't appreciate it. Different suggestions, even if it is something I already checked, can lead to related areas I may have ignored. It is usually when I am away from the car that something just pops into my head to check.

Any additional pictures of where the bolt goes through the bracket (the bolt that is missing in mine, that goes through the slot in the thick bracket) would be great. It is hard to see from the posted pics exactly where that bolt goes. Does it have a nut or does it thread into another part of the top mechanism?

Rick

 

Do you know if there is only 1 lead to the handbrake, or 2? Like I said, there was one that was already hooked up, and then another long lead coming out of the rear console area that wasn't hooked up to anything. It was very similar to the handbrake one (a double wire crimped into one connector).

As for that hydraulic bleeding info, that is great and I hope I can use it soon,once I get the system actually running.

 

Tried to figure out what I'm missing in the way of bolts, spacers, etc.

First picture: Is this hole used for anything? Something supposed to be bolted to it?

Second picture: If I figured things out right, there should be a bolt that runs through this slot and threads into the rusty hole that you see behind it. The bolt should be nutted up through the threaded hole, and have a bushing that lets the slotted piece move. Correct?

Third picture. This is the microswitch up on top of the mechanism behind the driver's seat. This would be S12 in the previous postings picture. Is it supposed to look like this? I tried removing it but it is a little hard to get at. I have to look at the wiring diagrams and figure out which microswitch (of the 2 in the back) is supposed to be normally open or normally closed when starting, and then when they switch over.

The top won't fold down more than about half way, manually, then it binds up. I don't know if the various levers and brackets in the back are way out of alignment or not. I may have to loosen all the bolts to let things move around to get it into the correct position.

Thank you for the help so far.

Rick
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Looking over the wiring schematics for the spider, the emergency top operation switch is supposed to energize the relays directly. The relays should always have +ve power on 2 leads. The emergency switch bypasses the ECU and provides a ground path for the relays. That triggers them, which passes the +ve power to the motor.

When I press my emergency switch I don't hear the relays clicking, so that is a starting point for debugging the electrical part of it. Since the windows are going down I assume power is getting to the ECU and it is at least partially working.

I really could still use some pictures of how the mechanism is bolted together at the back.

Rick

 

Some updates.

Thanks to the posted pictures, and more investigation of mine, I am missing 2 bolts on the drivers side that go through various spacers and blocks. That is not counting the bolts that hold the hydraulic cylinders in place. There is 1 bolt missing on the passenger side. I'll figure out what the thread is and then machine the spacers and stuff that it needs.

The other issue with the top not going all the way open was that the pivot bolts that are there were way too tight. They were binding everything up. When I get the bolts, washers and spacers done I'll take everything apart to clean and lube it and tighten it properly.

Electrically it seems to work now. At least the hydraulic pump runs when it should. There is no fluid in the system so I didn't want to run it too long.

Two lessons learned here that may help others. The first will seem really obvious, but even those things need pointing out now and then. If you are doing electrical work on your car and have the battery disconnected with the switch in the front, don't have a battery charger hooked up to the terminals at the rear. This defeats the purpose of disconnecting the battery. I wondered why I was getting relays clicking with the battery disconnected. No harm done......this time.

The other thing may be less obvious. If you are playing with the wiring and need to ground something, make very sure what you are using is really a ground. I was using one of the nuts that looked to be welded to the center console mounting structure to ground a few things. Turned out it was not a ground. There is a lot of fibreglass in this car so grounds may not be everywhere like in other cars.

I'm pleased with the progress on this. Seem to be getting things sorted out.

Rick