Brera Spider - soft top deck slam shut, cannot open it! FIXED!!!

[Helmerson]

Hi guys,

Like so many other Brera Spider owners the softtop mechanics recently started to get sporadic. Most likely cause are the two flap motors either side, which I have ordered from the UK and received recently.

I know for a fact that one of the flap motors is faulty because I looked inside the tiny little gearbox and some teeth of the plastic sprockets were broken. So I fitted it all back waiting for the spares to arrive from the UK.

In the meantime I closed the deck "by hand" as the electronics stopped just short of a full close of the deck lid. Now the electronics are confused and I am stuck with a shut lid (not the boot lid) but the softtop deck lid. Tried the manual procedure also with pulling the wire behind driver's seat, and using the special tool in the boot to unlock the mechanics (quarter turn to the right). Not much seemed to happen so I turned harder and now have this 19mm bolt freewheeling. Using the electric 'hood open' button just produces an error on the bord computer, no solenoids, no motors. Using the 'close' button successfully closes a partially opened roof (motors whirring etc) and it shows "hood successfully closed".

I can get as far as opening and lifting the rear window by using the manual method, but not the softtop deck, it remains solidly shut. This means I cannot replace the faulty flap motors and return the hood to its normal function. So now I am at the end of my wisdom and will probably have to go to an Alfa workshop. Ideally I would want to override the bord computer by a temporary hardwire link of the deck lifting motor but I cannot get my hands on the Spider schematics. Anyone who could help out with those?

Failing this,  does anyone know not just a regular Alfa workshop but some place who actually has real hands-on experience with these tricky Spider roofs?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[Citroënbender]

A torrent for the factory workshop manual would be a good start:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/112987938715

That should get you wiring schematics plus dissembly how-to; sounds like it will be a "fun" job nonetheless.

[Helmerson]

Thanks for the link, will give that one a go.

[bazzbazz]

As we used to say in the RAAF - If it won't fit, force it. If it breaks, ahhh it needed replacing anyway . . . .

[Citroënbender]

At a sort of rough guess respective to the interim situation, if you press and hold the lock button while the roof is down - should it close fully?

If so, what may be achieved with a helper lifting the immobile parts as the motors try to operate?

[Helmerson]

Hi all,

Thanks for all your input and ideas, all greatly appreciated. Well, after spending 2 days solid on this I have finally succeeded (I hope!). With those roofs you never know when they play up again, but for now I cycled it up and down 3 times and all seems good.

Rewinding back: in hindsight everything makes a lot more sense. The wire behind the driver's seat did actually nothing as some smart alex decided to leave it off at the pump! Obviously some prior work to the roof was done (I bought it 2nd hand from an Alfa dealer) and that just shows to avoid them like the plague.

So the deck lid was slam shut and I needed to get in to replace the flap motors which I was confident would fix my original problem of roof not closing completely. When the deck didn't close completely (I'd say it was 90% to closed) I pushed it down into its locking latches which are located behind the hoops on each side. That started my problem! The pull wire didn't work to release the hydraulics, and the hood ECU got all confused of the current state and chucked a dummy. Luckily, it kind of worked still somewhat as I could always complete a cycle to fully shut the roof top and the rear glass section, but it never allowed me to open anything.

Now I am not a mechanic (Electronics and IT actually) but I do know how to swing a spanner and twist a screw driver, so here I am thinking "what could an Alfa dealer do that I could not"? Admittedly, they would have manuals to look up to see what to do.  So I reached underneath the deck lid from near the hoops and found two bolts which hold the latching pin by feeling my way around blindly. Managed to undo both latching pins on both sides which allowed me to lift it up a little more, just enough to unbolt the flap assembly (3 bolts each) and then replace the motors outside. Then I managed to reach in and pull the carpet cover out and had just enough reach with one hand to blindly find the pulley wheel of the pump and turn it left by hand to release the hydraulics.

It still didn't release the back of the deck though which I had tried unsuccessfully with the special tool in the boot and because initially the pull wire behind the driver seat didn't work (without my knowledge) and I therefore tried too hard to do a quarter turn to the right on the 19mm bolt and somehow sheared something off and it was now only freewheeling. So I unbolted the two rear deck hinges with the boot open which gave me a little bit more play to carefully lever the front section up a little higher. I put a towel between the closed boot lid and the deck lid just to be sure not to scratch it. Now I had just enough clearance to fit the latching pins and the flap assemblies back. Very fiddly and needed a lot of arm twisting. Finally I fixed the rear hinges of the deck again, and made sure that the flaps were folded in underneath the deck. Put the ignition key in and pushed the 'open' button, and low and behold, against my own expectations, some whirring and clicking, and suddenly the deck lifted up vertically!

From then it was straightforward. I fitted the pull wire back onto the wheel on the pump and made sure it was turned right to seal the pump. Then I tried a few roof up/down cycles, all went smoothly! Only thing left is to see if and how I can fix the freewheeling of the emergency bolt in the boot.

Long story short - I am glad and happy that I didn't give up, as sometimes I thought this is beyond me. But once you work through it, step by step, things make more sense, and I am confident that the dealers couldn't have done more than I did myself. Learned a lot in the process as well, which makes me feel more confident if and when the roof should play up again, which we all know, is only a matter of time...

Thanks again for all your input, it gave me the moral support I needed to tackle this one head on.

[Citroënbender]

Great result there; quick, priced right, effective.