Succesfully 'fixed' my top! Now it works, even when movin

[grover]

I was never quite sure if it was a 'feature' or a 'defect' (I'm thinking defect), but having to stop the car and pull the handbrake to operate the top sure is annoying. At the PCA fun run today, another Boxster owner told me how easy it was to bypass the handbrake and speedo signals, and I set upon it immediately when I got home. Took a couple tries, as the first bolt I tried to ground the relay's handbrake pin to apparently is grounded to nothing but plastic, but I finally found a spot to ground it, and got it working. So I can finally operate the top while rolling

I did a search on here and didn't see the procedure. If anyone's interested:

1. Pull the cab top relay (under the dash, above the fuse panel- it's a double-wide relay, was the only double relay on my panel. Mine had all the pin functions labeled in German on it.)

2. Bend pin 18 (speedometer) over. I covered it with electrical tape, but it's probably not necessary.

3. Bend pin 15 (handbrake) over.

4. Attach a wire to pin 15 and ground it to something on the car- I dremeled the paint off the fascia rail under one of the screws of the lavender OBD port, and grounded to there. [update: I had some reliability issues with this ground point, and moved it to a more solid screw under the dash; hadn't had an issue in 2 years!]

5. Reinstall the relay.

It's completely reversible if you screw something up. Just try not to break your relay. I did discover if it's not bonded well, the top will NOT operate. So, there is potential here that if the connection loosens, the top might not operate.

Edited June 20, 2012 by grover

[wvicary]

This has been covered many times before on the forum. Why do you feel it's a defect to be stopped before top operation?? It's designed to protect the top material and operation mechanism from having to work against wind resistance. '05 models and up have a reworked top that can be opened/closed on the move up to 50 kph.

[motobob]

This has been covered many times before on the forum. Why do you feel it's a defect to be stopped before top operation?? It's designed to protect the top material and operation mechanism from having to work against wind resistance. '05 models and up have a reworked top that can be opened/closed on the move up to 50 kph.

Do the later models that are US Spec'ed also have this feature (open/close while moving)?

[grover]

This has been covered many times before on the forum. Why do you feel it's a defect to be stopped before top operation?? It's designed to protect the top material and operation mechanism from having to work against wind resistance. '05 models and up have a reworked top that can be opened/closed on the move up to 50 kph.

If that's true, then it would allow operation at slow speeds like later models do. Stopped with the parking brake on is a bit excessive. I don't plan on activation on the highway, but I *would* like to be able to put the top up/down in crawling bumper-to-bumper stop/go traffic without enraging those behind me.

I did search this forum, but didn't find any threads on the topic. (Believe me, I tried!) I found some archived topics at Porsche Pete's, but the links to the instructions were dead. One thing I don't like is the grounding method; it just doesn't seem robust enough. What I'd *like* to do, is modify the relay itself, so that all the changes are internal. Which pin in the relay is ground? It looks like the ground wire is the brown one coming in from pin B2 on the harness, but what pin on the relay does that correlate with?

Edited May 17, 2009 by grover

[tpot]

Ive just done this mod now, took me about 10 mins, i earthed mine to the center console bracket. works a treat and still drops the windows when you unlock the top

cant fault it, dont think i would use it anything over crawling speed for fear of damage, but i think like some others, its a bit OTT for the hanndbrake and stopped settings