When my 1999 XK8 was delivered the power top fluid had leaked from the passenger side piston. I did not have the money to do the necessary replacement of all the hoses, and after reading threads on this site noted this is an expensive and drawn out process.
Since car drives great I decided to raise and lower the top manually.
I have done this a couple of times with no issues. This time however the "Bonnet not Latched" warning light came on.
Again using this site I noted that it could be caused by the top being lowered manually and system is "confused". The recommendation to fix this was to refill the top pump and hard reset the system. I do not want to do that as it will only leak again.
Other than driving with the red warning would the removal of the roof raise/lower relays stop the system from monitoring the top for function flaws.

 

I wonder if the message is referring to the Bonnet as in the hood? Could it be that one of the bonnet/hood catches isn't latched ? I would have thought that if you closed the roof latch with the allen key it should be ok.

Was it Churchill who said We are two countries divided by a common language?

 

Yes it was Churchill, but being from Scotland, I know the bonnet is the hood. I check both latches and both latch, so its got to be somewhere within the computer logic system - which makes no logic.

 

Update. Raised roof, warning went away.

 

I love a happy ending.

 

Forum member "Dennis07" published an excellent tutorial on this site that explains how to effectively modify any XK8 convertible top to a manual operation. If I remember correctly, the parts costs are less than ten bucks. Search his posts and you will find his procedure. I believe he did this several years ago to his own car and has had no problems with his top operation since....

 

Thanks for the kind words, Jon. Just to clarify a bit ...

The mod Jon is referring to places the latch under manual control, while raising and lowering the top (the hard work) are left for the hydraulics to do.

I run my car this way not all the time but during summer months, having become convinced that heat is the single most important factor in causing hose failures. The rest of the time I run the top fully automatic, but with the pump's internal control valve reset for reduced pressure, and with a voltage reducer.