96 sl600, soft top & roll bar

[Morrissey]

Hi,
Due to weak battery car's soft top would not close down, instead the soft top stoped somewhere half way. After putting a new battery in place the top would not move neither up nor down. I tried closing the top manually, the front latches closed, the rear ones would not. As it is now, windows are down, window switches do nothing, roll bar is up, top control and roll bar control buttons are blinking. I belive the top can not be controlled since the roll bar is up.
I do have the owner's manual but it is in German , I do have a tool to manually operate the top.
Is it possible to close rear latches manually?
Is it safe to lower this "half open/half closed" soft top manually?
Is there any way of lowering the roll bar manually?
Thank you!

[bobterry99]

From the PM I got from you I know this car is a '96. On '95 and newer models the rear latches can not be operated manually. It is safe to raise or lower the top manually. Regarding the roll bar, the only way to operate it manually is via the switch on the center console.

If power is interrupted to the soft top controller as it was in your case, then it becomes necessary to "synchronize" the power windows before operating the top. You do this by raising the windows and continuing to press the switches for 2 seconds after they are completely raised and motion stops.

Your windows are down and don't respond to the switches, so obviously you can't synchronize them. I would try reseting the system as follows: (1) disconnect the ground cable from the battery, (2) momentarily short it to the positive cable to discharge any capacitance in the system, and then (3) reconnect the ground. Once this is done, then see if you can synchronize the windows.