2004 Maserati Spyder

[RRocket]

Spent a couple hours on this yesterday. Topped off the A/C, which had a pretty decent charge in it, but was a few PSI below where I'd want to see it, took about 10oz and bring it back in line and it's blowing nice and cold now, so that's a win! Hopefully it holds, but given that it already had quite a bit of charge in it, I don't think it's got a leak...likely just 22 years of normal loss. At least now I can drive it and be comfortable.

Played around with the top, replaced an iffy looking relay, and kinda figured out how the system works, but wasn't able to get it up and running. Hydraulics look good (no leaks) and the fluid level is fine....So I might have a bad pump, which would be annoying as it's not cheap. Going to spend some more time diagnosing before pulling the trigger.

Gave it a thorough vacuuming, moving the seats back and fourth, and must have disturbed a connector under there as now I've got an Air Bag light on. None of my code readers / scanners will pull Air Bag codes on this car, so I am looking at investing in a proper professional (semi-professional?) scanner that can read modules on this, and some of the other cars (Jag, Mercedes). Figure at this point it'll be a worthwhile investment.  Launch X431 is what I am looking at now, might have a lead on a direct deal through a friend.

Is it possible something in the roof is mechanically "frozen" preventing proper operation?

I just upgraded to a semi pro reader that some are using in garages. It's the Autel MK900. Seems highly rated and similarly liked to the Launch. The only thing that swayed me to the Autel was a couple reviews claimed the interface was a bit more polished vs Launch.

I'd imagine one of these would suit you just fine. The Autel is bi-directional too, so you can test and activate individual motors and functions via the scanner. Would make chasing your roof problem easier I bet.

[Firm]

Could be, I was thinking about the roof the other night and I think I am going to complete a full 'manual' cycle, folding it all the way down manually and then back up again to see if that changes anything. The pump is building 'some' pressure because in order to get the rear part of the top up to open the cover and access the pump I had to release the pressure, otherwise I couldn't move it by hand. Need to locate the microswitches (18 of them apparently) and make sure they're functioning properly too.

As for the scanner, I think I got lucky....Went to talk to a friend/co-worker to looks after the diagnostic tool business here in the office. He actually had an Autel MK900 sitting on his desk, but researching it I wasn't clear on whether the Autel had full functionality on older Maserati. Did some digging in his office and found a box for a launch X431, but no unit, he thought he might have taken it home to play with it, so last night he checked and found it....So I now have an X431 sitting on my desk. Hopefully it charges up and works, if so, that's a nice win!

[Firm]

Well, completed my first dry sump oil change....Not much different other than you have two drain points and need to check the level with the engine warm and idling. Got it up on the lift at the same time and did a nice underside inspection...Didn't really notice anything needing attention, so that's cool.

Played with the roof some more, but no luck yet....Need to do more testing on the hydraulic pressure control solenoids, but they're tricky to get at and I ran outta time.

Didn't play with the scanner as I forgot the box with the necessary activation code at the office...

[Firm]

Got the X431 scanner up and running....Took some playing around as, like everything now days, it requires registration, login, activation, wifi setup, bluebooth, etc before it'll do anything....Miss the days of just plugging in an OBD tool and the codes pop up in 30 seconds.
Once setup the X431 is very capable; cleared the AirBag codes and they haven't come back, so I suspect I just disturbed something in my cleaning and just needed a reset....Apparently Airbag codes are 'hard codes' on this vehicle, so the only way to clear them once they've been set is with a capable scanner - ridiculous really. The Scanner was also able to read the clutch wear, which I am very pleased to see is only at 23.1%....So that gambled paid off, just the parts for a clutch job on this are ~$4K, but with low wear like this, and correct driving, this clutch has many years left.

[RRocket]

Got the X431 scanner up and running....Took some playing around as, like everything now days, it requires registration, login, activation, wifi setup, bluebooth, etc before it'll do anything....Miss the days of just plugging in an OBD tool and the codes pop up in 30 seconds.
Once setup the X431 is very capable; cleared the AirBag codes and they haven't come back, so I suspect I just disturbed something in my cleaning and just needed a reset....Apparently Airbag codes are 'hard codes' on this vehicle, so the only way to clear them once they've been set is with a capable scanner - ridiculous really. The Scanner was also able to read the clutch wear, which I am very pleased to see is only at 23.1%....So that gambled paid off, just the parts for a clutch job on this are ~$4K, but with low wear like this, and correct driving, this clutch has many years left.

I presume you'll be able to test/cycle roof components via scanner?

[Firm]

I didn't see the roof module come up in the list of available modules in the scanner, but didn't dig in as deep as I would've liked...Princess Firm is sick and I got pulled away from the cars to take care of her while Mrs.Firm took the other kid to his friend's halloween thing.

The roof, if I can't do anything from the scanner, I've started mapping out a schematic for it, because I can't find anything online. It's not super complicated, there's 7 relays, and 7 solenoids on a valve body. I strongly suspect each relay triggers a solenoid which manages the flow of pressure through the valve body. Easy enough to test each relay, and then if they're all good I'll need to start testing the relays. The annoying part is that I can't test them in place due to poor access. 

[RRocket]

I didn't see the roof module come up in the list of available modules in the scanner, but didn't dig in as deep as I would've liked...Princess Firm is sick and I got pulled away from the cars to take care of her while Mrs.Firm took the other kid to his friend's halloween thing.

The roof, if I can't do anything from the scanner, I've started mapping out a schematic for it, because I can't find anything online. It's not super complicated, there's 7 relays, and 7 solenoids on a valve body. I strongly suspect each relay triggers a solenoid which manages the flow of pressure through the valve body. Easy enough to test each relay, and then if they're all good I'll need to start testing the relays. The annoying part is that I can't test them in place due to poor access. 

Hopefully you find the roof module.

It might be located somewhere not immediately evident on the scanner.

[Firm]

Had about 2 hours of tinkering time today, and the weather was great, so I did something cosmetic and did the paint correction on the rear 1/3 of the car. As expected, the paint comes up really well without a ton of effort. Silver doesn't show it well, but the quality and finish of the factory paint is quite nice.

You can see a pretty good dent in the quarter panel from this angle, should be an easy fix for a decent PDR guy, and there's a place close by that comes highly recommended, so I'll probably take it over there once I get the rest of it cleaned up.

[Firm]

Finally scrubbed and detailed the interior last weekend, aside from the obvious damage on the dashpad, the rest of the interior came out great....Seats and the leather wrapped console, side & door panels all cleaned up really minty. Neglected to take photos as it was getting too dark by the time I was done.

On the convertible top repair front, I need to do some more diagnostics, but I am leaning towards a bad pump and/or bad solenoid(s) on the pump valve body. A used replacement Maserati unit is about $900 USD, and reman units are $1,600+....Out of the question for a "I think it's probably the issue" situation.

So, I've been digging into the deep depths of the internet and determined that the pump unit itself is shared with a bunch of cars; Ferrari 360, BMW E46, CLK W208, etc. The valve body, which is mounted to the pump, is unique to each application and the solenoids are semi-unique with the BMW and others using different style connectors. Fortunately, it appears that the CLK W208 unit uses both the same pump and the same solenoids, just with a different valve body. So, in theory, I could re-use the Maserati valve body, and get a fresh pump and solenoids from a CLK to build myself a good unit.

Good used CLK unit is $150 USD on eBay, but the scrapyard in Memphis has two W208's with convertible top pumps for $30. So I am going to scoot by there later in the week and grab one, even if it's just to get my hands on a unit so I can start studying and testing it. 

[Blueprint]

I 100% support that plan! Research is always key when looking for a solution. Manufacturers often share suppliers and the trick is to find the common denominators wiyth complex systems like that roof. Back in the days, the Isuzu Impulse had the same pop-up headlight motors as my Celica.

[RRocket]

Good used CLK unit is $150 USD on eBay, but the scrapyard in Memphis has two W208's with convertible top pumps for $30. So I am going to scoot by there later in the week and grab one, even if it's just to get my hands on a unit so I can start studying and testing it. 

Grab them both and sell the spare on eBay for $75!