So my convertible top stopped working.......
 

Just inches away of fully closing and the top stops. Light blinks on the top up switch, no movement by holding down the switch.

So here is what I discover. One wire in the harness is completely cut, another is ready to break. The area of concern for reference is in the circled area below, right at he hinge point that is circled.

http://home.comcast.net/~fmzip/BMW/brokentop.jpg


Here is a picture of the green wire that was close to breaking off next

http://home.comcast.net/~fmzip/BMW/brokentop1.jpg


So what I did was spliced in two new pieces of wire. I made certain the splices where not at the pivot point but beyond it/ Next to the green wire, you can actually seen a black wire (which was the brown and red striped wire which broke) which I replaced. I soldered them in, then wrapped them in electrical tape, then tie wrapped the harness in a few spots along the rail.

Problem solved.

Thanks for the details.

nice :)

So did you splice the open the harness to check the wire?

yes.............

as pictured

This must be a common problem, the PO of my car had this exact same repair done.

It is a common problem. Wish it would stay at the top of this forum so I could stop pointing countless people to it ;)

You could consolidate the most common vert top fixes (that wiring one, the bat wing issue, etc) into one thread linking to the DIYs and ask the mods to sticky it.

I think you meant slice (and peel back) the harness cover to get access to make the splice? Just trying to clarify.

Either way, Fran: what did you use to re-wrap the wires with for protection? Were you able to tuck the harness out of the way so it won't get pinched again?

I cut open the braid, inspected the wires and spliced in new wire where need be. Next, soldered (no clean solder) and used shrink tubing. Then I used electrical tape to tape the braid back together

It's not that they are getting pinched, it's that they are being bent over and over again which causes the wire to fracture. No way around this from happening

BMW should have used some heavier gauged wire or one with a thicker jacket. That's what I used when I made the splice.

Yeah. They should've used braided wiring.
Wonder how they do all this in the current hardtop verts.

I did that.....

they stickied another thread instead but no one reads that one either:

http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=854059