Roof stuck down - seems to be dead motor/mechanism problem

[alphabetter]

Well the winter hasn't been kind to my roof. Took the Bongo camping this weekend and the roof wouldn't budge. Control system bleeps but no sound of motors running and no movement.

Been doing some fault-finding at home today. Story so far:

• Handbrake switch is working
• Control system is bleeping
• Got to the "four way connector" on the control unit in the back driver's side. Voltage appears on the motor contacts when the "open" button is pressed, though it does seem to drop a lot - from 13.6ish down to 11.something. Could this just be the resistance in the wiring runs?
• Jumped the 4 way connector manually and got sparks/heating of the jumper wires indicating a fair amount of current was flowing. No movement, but when I reversed the direction there was a little clunk from the motor which sounded like slack being taken up.

So seems most likely to be a problem with mechanism/motors rather than the electrics. I've given some of the descriptions on this forum of how to release the catches a half-hearted attempt but didn't get any results. I think my options now are:
1) May-be connect a battery directly to the 4 way connector and see if we can get a few more volts with shorter/thicker wiring for a bit more umph. Anyone ever had success with this?
2) Phone the pros

Any other suggestions?

[g8dhe]

The voltage drop is expected, I'm surprised its not even more of a drop, if the motors have stalled.
Be a little wary of putting the battery direct to the connector, make certain you do have a fuse in line 30 Amps is fine the last thing you want is burning motor insulation when you can't get at the motors!!!
I think I would go for revving the engine a bit whilst trying to raise it first ....

[alphabetter]

Yes - these are both good points.

Reving the engine is an easy and low-risk one to try.

I agree that if connecting the battery directly then I should use a fuse. Not sure I can be bothered to build the harness needed to do this.

[mikeonb4c]

Mine gave out. Two (expensive) brand new motors later and it seems to be its old self again. Fitted by Adrian in Bury, who is ace at this work. He says that its a case of use them or lose them with these electric motors. I try and put mine up from time to time now, even if I'm not camping, as the bishop said.

[francophile1947]

Have you read this thread http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... =3&t=60964

[alphabetter]

Thanks John - I might try the "jiggling" direction approach. When it comes to removing the rails then I think I would call the pros.

[alphabetter]

I finally got around to looking at this again today.

My thought was "in for a penny, in for a pound" so I made a wiring harness to connect a battery directly to the "4 way plug". I included a 30A fuse so things were as safe as reasonably possible.

Disconnected the starter battery.

Connected the battery to lift the roof - small spark on connection indicating lots of current but no sound or movement.

Swapped the connections in to the "lower roof" direction. Motors ran for about a quater or half a second.

Swapped back to "lift roof" direction, this time the roof started to open normally. Phew

I've greased the rails and reconnected everything back to normal. A few opening/closing trials today and it seems to work OK. It even manages to get all the way to the fully-open lock without any manual assistance which is unusual.

Only thing is that one of the motors is squeeling quite badly. Whether this is a lubrication problem inside the motor or something else I am not sure. My plan is to try again tomorrow and perhaps take the cover off the motor and see if I can oil/adjust the motor directly.

Is there any easy way to tell if both motors are working

[g8dhe]

To get to the motors press and pull off the plastic covers and then use an allen key to release the bolts. You can then lubricate the exposed gears and it sounds like it would be worth getting some cleaner and then oil into the motors themselves, not needed to do it myself, but I wouldn't think its too difficult to do. Given that one needs lubrication then its likely that both need doing!

[alphabetter]

Roof went up again OK this morning, but still one motor was very noisy.

I removed the noisy motor by removing the big plastic shell and then removing the three allen bolts. I oiled all the exposed parts and tried it. Motor ran quite nicely from a 12V power supply but squeeled when held in some orientations, so I decided to investigate deeper.

Here's the warning for others:

The metal shell around the motor held on by two cross-head screws is not a case containing the motor, as I thought, but the actual outer housing of the motor itself. Once you take it off out will come the motor shaft, windings, brushes and brush springs! "Oh my God" was my first thought.

Anyway having got the thing apart there was nothing to do but try and get it back together again. The inside of the metal case was quite rusty suggesting it had got wet and not dried in the past. As far as I could tell none of the moving parts of the motor was damaged though. Brushes and commutator looked ok. The rear bearing seemed as dry as a bone so I oiled the bearings thoughout. After a battle to keep the brushes in I got everything back together and amazingly it worked!

When refitted to the roof I find it now goes up and down quite smoothly and quietly so I am going to call it job done.

Ideally the other motor should be serviced too but I think the risk/reward of taking it apart as far as I did on the first one is not worth it at this stage.

Thanks for the help on this thread and the previous ones on the subject. The collective wisdom was invaluable.

[g8dhe]

Good to hear! And useful info about the two screws