[0:00]Hey guys, behind me is a BMW E36 Convertible with a broken roof. Uh, in today's video guys, what we're going to do is we're going to completely rewire the roof bypassing the computer.
[0:15]I am going to show you how to hook up the roof yourself, fix it once and for all, guys. Um, let's get started right away.
[0:23]Okay guys, so these cars came out with two different style roofs. Uh, one roof is fully automatic and one roof is partially automatic.
[0:34]What that means is this opens up That's one motor, right? Then the roof comes out.
[0:43]That's the second motor. And some of them have a handle here and you close this part of the roof manually and some of them also have a motor there.
[0:53]So some have one, two, three motors and some have two motors. In this video, I'm going to cover both styles, but the one we're specifically working on here has three motors, guys.
[1:08]Okay, so I mean, I would hate to take you away from this video, but I have another video where I show you how to open and how to close a broken roof on one of these.
[1:21]You really should watch it. I don't feel like recording the same stuff twice. That video covers basically that handle there.
[1:27]How you pull that and that pops the motors out so it frees this and it frees the roof. And I show you how to close this front part in that video.
[1:38]So in the description of this video, there would be a link to that video. If you haven't watched it, just quickly check it out so you understand what's going on here.
[1:47]Okay, so in our case, we're just going to get into this right away. Okay, so yes, you can buy computers and try swapping out your computer.
[1:57]And check all your micro switches and all this stuff. So I have tried everything to get this roof working and I've only got it to close once and then it got all messed up.
[2:08]I'm done trying. I want to get this car on the road. Uh, we're just going to do it the simple, quick, very inexpensive way.
[2:15]Okay, so the first thing you want to do is pop your trunk here and inside of your trunk right here, there is two motors.
[2:24]See, uh, there's one motor here, it's popped in now, and there's another motor right here, which is also popped in. So what you're going to have to do is, yeah, you're going to have to cut some wires, guys.
[2:35]So all these little wires coming out of it, I cut, right, all the little skinny ones. And these are your two main wires for that motor.
[2:44]One is gray and red, one is gray and black. So these two wires will control basically this opening and closing.
[2:55]I will get to how to hook that up in a minute. And here is your second motor right here. And these two wires, so they come out, uh, red and green, then they go through this, and they become, uh, blue with a red line and blue with a green line.
[3:16]See, those were hooked up there. So I just cut that. We're going to put electrical tape on this. You're not going to use these anymore.
[3:22]You're going to put electrical tape on these ones, you're not going to use these anymore for now. Um, you're going to need these two and these two that go back into this motor.
[3:34]Okay, so that second motor that I just showed you controls the actual roof. Like the roof that comes out.
[3:40]So that's what that second motor controls. And then there is a third motor inside of the actual roof that controls this. Pretty straightforward, right, guys?
[3:50]Okay guys, now I'm going to show you how these motors work. It's honestly pretty straightforward.
[3:57]Okay, so you're going to need a wire like this, just so you can get it out of the trunk. So what you're going to do is, you're going to go in here, and these two wires that go directly into that motor, you're just going to hook these two up to it for now.
[4:12]Like I'm just showing you how this works. So this one will get hooked up there, that one will get hooked up there right up to this motor. And I'll have it running out the trunk.
[4:21]Uh, just so you can understand how this works. Let me just quickly hook that up. Okay, so I hooked it up. See, just like this. One's hooked up to one, one's hooked up to the other.
[4:32]I got it running out of the trunk. So now you can close your trunk. And you got these two wires right here hooked up directly to your motor.
[4:44]Okay, so now this is a 12 volt battery out of one of my scooters. It's the same amount of voltage as a car battery.
[4:55]Yes, it's smaller looking, but it's still 12 volts. It's the exact same thing. So the way these 12 volt motors work on cars is, if you hook it up in one direction, here, let me show you.
[5:07]See, I got my two wires that hook up directly to the motor. There's my positive and there is my negative. So, if you hook these up like this, positive, negative. And yes, on a car battery, you can touch these.
[5:18]You're not going to get electrocuted. It's only 12 volts, you're not feeling it. Anyways, so you hook up one and then you hook up the other. See, look at that. That's how that opens.
[5:33]Now, if you want to close it, all you have to do is reverse the polarity. Get it? Like, you put this wire here and this wire here. Now the motor's going to run backwards.
[5:51]Pretty straightforward, right, guys? Forwards.
[6:01]Backwards.
[6:06]So I mean, guys, so far, pretty straightforward, right? Really nothing to it. A baby could do it.
[6:14]Okay, so what we're going to do, like, this is my plan for this. We are going to have three switches. Each switch is going to control each part of the roof.
[6:24]So I'm going to have one switch to open and close this. I'm going to have another switch to make the roof come out and go back down.
[6:33]And then I'm going to have a third switch that's going to control this. This part's going to be the most complicated. But if you don't have this part, you still got to watch the whole video to understand what we're doing.
[6:44]Um, but that's how I'm going to hook all this up. And the switches you need, guys, are called polarity reversing switches.
[6:54]So the way they work is two wires go in, a positive and a negative, right? And then, if you click it one way, the polarity comes out in one direction, like positive, negative, right?
[7:05]But if you click it the other way, then it spins it around, get it? Just like what we did with the wires. It does that inside of the switch.
[7:12]I will get to all that, but I just want you guys to fully understand what's going on here so nobody gets lost as we're going through this whole process.
[7:22]Okay, so yes, all the interior is out of the car because I am doing other stuff too. Uh, but the place that I want to put these three switches is, I have room right here.
[7:33]See on this thing. So these pop out and I'm just going to have them like one, two, three kind of thing. Um, I will get to all that, but that's where the location of the switches is going to be in my case.
[7:46]I mean, you can put your switches anywhere you want. You can put them anywhere you want, it doesn't matter. But in my case, I'm putting them there.
[7:54]Okay, let's get uh started on the wiring of this right now. There really is nothing to it. You can do it.
[8:01]Okay, guys, so the first thing you're going to need, like, we're going to use 16 gauge wire to do all this. Uh, the gauge of the wire is like the thickness of it.
[8:10]So, the the smaller the number, the thicker the wire, like a 10 gauge wire is thicker than a 16 gauge wire.
[8:18]We're just going to use a 16, it should work. Uh, the best, cheapest way to get wires, guys, I just went to the dollar store. I bought an extension cord, a 16 gauge extension cord for four bucks, right?
[8:34]And then what you do is you just split it, right? Because there's two chords. So I cut the end off, right? And you just split it like this.
[8:42]You get it. So I'm going to have two basically 14 foot wires for four bucks. Can't beat that.
[31:12]Okay, guys. Well, our next move is to close the roof. So, let's do that. So I got one set of wires hooked up right here, just like before.
[31:25]And then I got another set hooked up to that motor. See, I just got them running out the trunk because the trunk has to be closed in order for that to open, right?
[31:34]Um, so we'll just go like this. We'll bring these up and you get the drill. Hook it up to our little 12 volt battery and let's open her up.
[31:44]And guys, this 12 volt battery, like I said earlier, same thing as just a regular car battery. Wrong direction. See, it stops.
[32:15]Then you disconnect the battery. And then on the way up, so if you're using a switch, you can basically hold the switch right till it stops. See, it stops. You let go of the switch.
[32:27]So this one will be easy. The next one does the same thing. Okay, let's do the next roof.
[33:51]See in the opposite direction. Okay, guys, so here we have it. Um, so I originally was going to work on this part next.
[34:07]On this motor to hook it up and get it working, but I decided not to do that, guys. What I'm going to do is, I'm going to work on the motor that controls this and the motor that controls this.
[34:25]So that way for the people that don't have the fully automatic roof, I'm going to make a separate video on just that part, guys.
[34:36]Just this part. And it's going to be a private video, guys. So the only way you're going to be able to get to the video on the front opening and closing part of this roof is by clicking in the description on the link or at the end of this video. There'll be a little link as well.
[34:53]But this is different, guys. You can't hook this up the same way we're about to hook up these other two. Let me just quickly show you why and then we're moving on.
[35:02]So basically with the other two motors for that part of the roof back there, um, you can just hold the button and it can go up all the way and it'll just stop on its own, right? When it goes up and when it goes down.
[35:18]Um, you know, you can hear it stop and you just let go of the button. But the problem with this front part is, if you hold the button down and this motor just keeps spinning and spinning, it's it's going to twist these rods here.
[35:32]You get what I'm saying? So there's little micro switches. There's a little micro switch here and there's a little micro switch on the other side. Um, somewhere there, I'll show you guys in the other video.
[35:43]And what we have to do is we're going to have to hook up relays. So that way, when this thing slides over, the second it hits the micro switch, it's going to cut this motor out.
[35:54]So it doesn't twist anything. And then when you press the button in the other direction, and then this goes the other way, it's going to hit the micro switch and cut the motor out.
[36:02]So it doesn't twist these rods here. They're not very strong as far as that. So this part is going to be a little bit more complicated, guys.
[36:11]So like I said, there will be a separate video on just this, almost like a continuation of what we're doing. Okay, let's get into hooking up of the other two motors right now.
[36:22]It's very, very simple, guys. You can do it. Okay, guys. You got to check it out. It works awesome.
[38:08]Um, let me show you. So here are my two buttons that control the two motors. That kind of looks like the back of the car.
[38:17]That kind of looks like the front of the car. So this is for the for the back part opening, and this is for the roof opening.
[38:26]Make sense to me. I mean, you're the computer now, so you have to press these in the right sequence, right? Like, for example, Right now, the roof is completely open, right?
[38:35]So the first thing you got to do is open this thing. You don't want to start pulling out your roof when this is closed, right?
[38:46]Like, I mean, there's no computer to tell it. You're in charge of your switches. It's like when you're driving a standard car. You're not going to throw it in reverse when you're on the highway, right?
[38:57]So I mean, you got to be careful with your own car. Okay, let's open the back. So I mean, pretty straightforward. We press this.
[39:05]Oh, nothing's happening. That's right, because our ignition's not on. Let's turn it on. All right. Let's open the back.
[39:13]See, there it goes. Right to the end. You let go of the button. Now we're going to press up on this one to make the roof start coming out.
[39:26]Pretty straightforward. Okay, I'm pressing it now. Look at that. Very nice. Real time, boys and girls.
[39:35]It goes up. See, the back lifts. Okay, I let go of the button. Let me show you. See, the roof came out. It lifted this thing up for that to go under.
[39:50]So that's controlled by the same motor as the roof coming out. So now we're going to go in the car. And we're going to close the back piece. Nothing to it. Just like this.
[50:48]So thanks for watching. Problem Solver Garage, guys. Make sure you tune in next time for the awesome episode of life.
