Roll bar troubleshooting 90

[nickguy]

Second attempt.. First attempt I hit enter too soon. Hopefully the moderator will edit me.

So I got this car a couple of months ago from a friend. The people he bought it from were sadly idiots and dishonest. Fortunately the car was cheap and has good bones. To give an idea of the dishonesty and dumbness they pulled the climate control sensor wiring to shut off the roof alarm chime. And they took out the beautiful stock radio and installed something awful. Anyway I am fixing stuff as I go such as door locks, distributor problems, seat belt relay and filthy carpets I have pulled the hardtop and am troubleshooting the roll bar and soft top at the moment. Good news is that If I hotwire the pump and the roll bar solenoids I can raise and lower it. Bad news is that the aforementioned silly people unplugged the roll bar ECU, probably when they were installing the stupid amp that they shoe-horned in the passenger storage cubby. I plugged it in, shorted pins 1 and 10 on the diagnostic port and got lots of codes and cleared them but the one that keeps coming back was # 23 roll bar ECU. So I pulled the ECU, took it apart and saw one chip that looked a little suspect. Picked up another ECU on ebay and installed. Same issue. Built the 3 wire diagnostic unit outlined on the forums and looked at the codes on port 7. Nothing bad. Plug in the old ECU and get code 8 for the dash light. This completely confuses me as it does not show up on the “new” ECU and the dash light illuminates when I turn the ignition on. I am suspecting that the vandals who owned this care found some way to disable it though. Have been studying the DVD and ETM today trying to figure out next steps including should I return the new ECU or not. Have ruled out fuses etc… but sadly this looks like it might be more complicated than 2 bad roll bar ECU’s… Have not even got to the soft top controller yet. I can clear code 23 from the soft top controller but it reliably comes back every time I cycle the ignition. I have a bad habit of over-complicating things so if anyone has thoughts other than reset the switch stuff I would appreciate it. My thinking is that next I need to somehow prove out the roll bar ecu function by studying the wiring diagrams and stepping back from the solenoids..? Anyway thoughts appreciated.

[nickguy]

Have decided to hang onto the EBAY ecu as it does not throw any errors. Now am going to go step by step through the troubleshooting procedure outlined on the DVD.

[tecqboy]

Don't forget to check the roll over switches located on the rear axle. They're out in the weather and can become an issue. Check them with an ohm meter on the lowest scale. In fact, all the micro switches need to be checked this way. Be sure to check the OVP fuse. Power for many of the computer modules is sourced there.

[nickguy]

OVP and roll bar switches ok.. I can get the bar to come up if I set them to test...and brake.

[nickguy]

Resolved issue after much effort... top ecu was bad. Although it threw a code 23 indicating that the issue was with the roll bar ecu it actually was the controller. BBA manufacturing get my thumbs up. They could not fix the controller so gave me my money back. Replacement roll bar ECU purchased on ebay turned out to be bad so went back to the original. This car also had completely bent tension rods which I had to straighten. Sourced new top ECU and after some time spend clearing the codes and straightening the tension bars I have a functional soft top.