Power Top

[GamblerHydra]

I am pretty sure the motor went out , and I have a new one on the way . I have ship killers write up to remove and replace .

Anyways , I have the shop manual for the Z4. I was reading thru replacing some cooling hoses, and thought what the heck maybe there is something in here in on power tops .

I found some troubeshooting guidelines. It talks about sometimes a loss of fluid , or low fluid can cause the issue. It talks about how to access the motor from the trunk by removing the driver panel in the trunk to check and replace fluid . So it got me thinking do you really have to remove the whole top to replace the motor , or is there a hidden backdoor ? I am thinking if there was a way someone would have discovered it by now . However , I thought I would ask the question. It just seems like a huge design flaw they would make it this hard to replace a power top Hyd motor.

Thanks

[dreamingat30fps]

I remember reading on here at some point someone mention just that and they said they did it without removing the whole top. However I don't remember them every posting the details. My top has been dead for over 6 months now. I've just been operating it by hand.

[GamblerHydra]

I am going to try and tackle it first via the trunk for grins. I am going to tackle it this weekend.

[Huz-Z]

Originally Posted by dreamingat30fps

I remember reading on here at some point someone mention just that and they said they did it without removing the whole top. However I don't remember them every posting the details. My top has been dead for over 6 months now. I've just been operating it by hand.

Not to invite disaster for my nicely functioning top, but how easy / difficult is it to operate the top manually?

[dreamingat30fps]

Originally Posted by Huz-Z

Not to invite disaster for my nicely functioning top, but how easy / difficult is it to operate the top manually?

Down is cake, I can do it while sitting in the car. Up takes a bit more effort as I have to lift it up then go back in the car to push the botton to lock it. However for $900 I can put up with quite a bit.

[GamblerHydra]

Well got it done , and saved $1100. The local BmW shop had wanted 1400. I got the part for $325 .

It took about 4 Hrs total with 2 people . We could probably cut that in half next time. Shipkiller write worked like a dream .

The toughest part was getting the top back in the 2 clips.

There is a way to get to the motor from the rear but it is a bi$ch. It is much easier to take off the top .

I will post up some pics of my old motor . It was destroyed, and was sitting in about 4 inches of water I discovered. The hole drain hole was full .

[dreamingat30fps]

Can you at least see the motor from the rear? Would help in identifying if its indeed the pump that is bad. Could you fill the fluid from there if that were the issue?

[Huz-Z]

Originally Posted by dreamingat30fps

Down is cake, I can do it while sitting in the car. Up takes a bit more effort as I have to lift it up then go back in the car to push the botton to lock it. However for $900 I can put up with quite a bit.

Thanks! It's nice to know that this is not the end of the world. A potentially big pain in the wallet though, it definitely is!!

[GamblerHydra]

Originally Posted by dreamingat30fps

Can you at least see the motor from the rear? Would help in identifying if its indeed the pump that is bad. Could you fill the fluid from there if that were the issue?

If the fluid was the issue you could definitely fill it . If you take the panel in the trunk off , you can get in and looking down the driver side fender to front of car you will see the motor housing .

It will be laying in the drain area hole.

You can pull the motor up that is in the case , and remove the top of the housing. You will then be staring right at the fluid screw plug.

You could observe it ,and if need be unscrew the plug with a torx bit and fill .

To make it mush easier if you take the panel behind the seats completely out . Then have another person reach back there and hold the motor housing for you while you do this.

We actually did this to put some additional silicone around the housing once in place . Some had rubbed off when we dropped the top back in.

Since this is all sealed, if you we're low in fluid the million dollar question would be why. However , if you had a small leak this could get you by .

David