Solar Roof retrofit - Electrickery

[awolfinsheepsclothes]

Hi mr whale
Sorry it's not that Clear I'm sure Ian has done a guide for that too.
You replace 10" long caps on each side for the one with cut outs, for the wires of the contacts with + and negative on.
I'll try and find the link to Ian's guide or take a pic
After removing the grab handles there is a tiny steel wire, the same as pedal bike gear cable, that you need to pull with some long nose pliers to relise the trim clips
Cheers dave

[Adrian E]

I've posted pics of the bits in the past too - try a search for 'solar' in the d2 section and you should find them. I took loads when I stripped my donor roof

[Architex_mA8tey]

Originally Posted by thebluewhale

For some weird reason my last post has a posting date of 2002.
I wondered why I'd had no reply

Maybe the "retro sounds" in your old skool CD player caused a time warp!!

[Adrian E]

There was a funny spell with the forum a week or 3 back where it seemed to reset to a time/date in the past. Was only like it a couple of hours IIRC

[thebluewhale]

Originally Posted by architex_ma8tey

maybe the "retro sounds" in your old skool cd player caused a time warp!! :d

:rofl:

[Dezzy]

I'm rubbish with electrics so please be gentle. My car has solor roof and it used to work. However it stopped a while ago now. Now i ordered a relay from A8Parts and it arrived the day after (thanks guys) when i took the relay board out the car it looks similar to this


As i have a hole where the 203 relay should be so i pushed my new relay in all good, but it still doesn't work. Also when the relay is in the holder when moving the car forward or back it clicks like mad almost as if it's picking up the wheel rotation.

The other thing i couldn't understand is how it used to work without a relay in there. Turns out the garage at somepoint has removed it to replace 382 in that photo, that had failed. They said they tested everything and couldn't find anything that the relay did so pinched it. So 2 questions, what does ralay 382 do? and why do i get clicking with 2 off 203's 1 in the correct place and one not?

[Adrian E]

Sorry Dezzy, can't help with your issue but thought this thread was best place to post something I'd asked about in a for sale thread but didn't find an answer to.

There are known to be 2 different solar cell arrays depending on the year of the car - earlier ones being somewhat less effective, neither being exactly forceful on the air flow front!

I found this pic in an Auto Trader advert for a PF S8 with solar, which clearly shows the panel lay out:



and this is the one I have to fit to my car, which could've been one side or the other of the manufacturing date change:



The cells are arranged in a group of 3, but with the later panel you get 4 rows, rather than 3 (84 cells in total rather than 63 of the earlier one)

[Dezzy]

Thanks Adrian, nice pics too showing the difference's.

It's a strange one for sure.
Just to make everything clear it's not something i've retrofitted, the solar roof has always been there and worked fine untill the relay was stolen to use else where, and i could hear it running when it worked.
So i'm wondering if it's the car giving me attitude and need a damn good thrashing or the relay duff, just don't understand why it clicks when moving the car forward or back.

[The_Laird]

Richard (PsYcHe) retrofitted mine and sorted out the electrics, so he should be able to help - perhaps simply get a new relay and give that a try? The clicking on moving seems really odd.

[David's8]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

So i'm wondering if it's the car giving me attitude and need a damn good thrashing or the relay duff, just don't understand why it clicks when moving the car forward or back.

The picture of Dezzy giving the car a "damn good thrashing" a la Basil Fawlty ..."RIGHT, I'VE WARNED YOU...." springs to mind.

Like you Dezzy, I,m a bit of a numpty when it comes to electrikery but if the relay is operating in an on/off fashion (clicking) is it because its changing between driven by solar panel (for when the car is stationary) and driven off the Climate Control unit/ car electrics when moving. So the relay is either switching normally but is confused between adopting either of the two states when movement is slow or.. its fecked.