Soft top hydraulics totally dead, I have a strange question

JGrabowMST · Sep 11, 2011

Okay, forgive me if this has been asked before, but I did read the "ultimate thread" for the soft top, but it didn't address one problem I have with an SL600 AMG.

My bosses SL600 hydraulics broke yesterday, as we tried to put the top down so I could take it to a show. We were able to put the top down manually, but the problem I came to was when I tried putting the top back up.

The front clips on the top of the windshield worked totally fine, I was able to clip them in place, and it worked fine.

The two rear clips, I guess before the trunk area however, seem to be stuck in the "locked" position, all the way down. I apologize for not having pictures, it was a long, and less than good day, and taking pictures of it wasn't what crossed my mind first.

All the fluid came out from the passenger side clip on the windsheild, and over about 30 mins, I'm guessing just about all the fluid came out of the system. I'm also guessing the rear clips are hydraulic, which explains why they wouldn't open when I tried to lock the top in place.

When you go to hit the button for the hydraulics to raise/lower the top, there's just a click, I'm guessing the pumps using some safety shutoff, because there's no fluid in there.

I'm more or less certain that at the least, the passenger side clip will need to be repaired/replaced/rebuilt. I'm just curious to know what people would suggest doing. I'm not allergic to working on cars, but we don't have a garage to work in, and the weather isn't getting any nicer around here.

I heard mention of the member "Dennis" and did try to follow some links, which all seem to go nowhere (most posts are rather old as well), so I'm a little lost.

Over the past couple weeks, the car seems to be throwing a temper tantrum of bills, as a headlight and a taillight are both up for replacement, but for sake of argument, the top is the more important thing to get repaired.

We do have the hard top, and can put it on, but again, with the rear clips stuck in the locked position, that makes things rather difficult.

Feel free to learn me about some links that I might have missed, or help me out, my boss isn't pissed at me, but all this happens only a couple days after he talks about how much he loves that car.

Thanks in advanced.

RedLiner · Sep 11, 2011

Our resident R129 hydraulic expert Klaus, is on a weekend vacation.
However when he picks this up, I'm sure he'll give you the best advice available :thumbsup:

Just as a courtesy to us all, could you please complete your user profile with your vehicle model and year, and your location (just a country or even a continent would help us) :thumbsup:

WarrenC · Sep 11, 2011

Pull the cover off under the spare tire and check the reservoir on the pump. Don't use anything other than MB fluid or the Febi equivalent (clear mineral oil type fluid).
If it's the front cylinders leaking, it's an easy fix. Check out Klaus's website: http://www.tophydraulicsinc.com/
He has easy step by step instructions posted there!

Lighthouse · Sep 12, 2011

Model year, and are both rear locks stuck in down position?

JGrabowMST,

do not despair; this is a very fixable problem. In order to give you the best advice, we need to know your model year. I'll post more details once I know better what we are dealing with on your end.

In model years '90-'94, you can unlatch the rear locks easily with a 10-mm wrench, as described in the owner's manual. Make sure the ignition is turned off when trying to unlatch manually.

In model years '95+, it happens easily that one of the rear locks gets stuck in the "down" position after the hardtop gets removed. There have been a few posts about that, such as http://www.benzworld.org/forums/r129-sl-class/1592024-1995-roadster-soft-top-rst-rear.html. If you have a '95+ model, are you sure that BOTH rear locks are stuck in the down position?

-Klaus

klaus@tophydraulicsinc.com

JGrabowMST · Sep 12, 2011

Hey Klaus, thanks for the reply, I've been at school/work all day, so I'm just sitting back down to this.

I haven't had a chance to talk to my boss about his top yet, but so far, as I'm aware it's a 1997, and yes, both rear locks are stuck in the down position. I did email my boss the .pdf from your website (Top Hydraulics) and am hoping he goes with you to get the parts, I'll even put them in, I do plenty of work on other cars, but Merc really threw a curve ball with this (and I'm rather unfamiliar with convertibles).

I was looking and there appears to be no manual latch for it, so I think we're actually talking about different locks. There are two tabs that come off the bottom of the back of the SL600 top, which lock into cylinders which I guess are hydraulic, and with no fluid, they can't open. I'm not referring to the clips for the middle section of the car that the top folds under, I'm talking about two locking clips that hold the rear of the top down.

If I can, I'll take pictures of the car tomorrow.

Lighthouse · Sep 13, 2011

Pulling up the stuck down rear locks, and latching them open

JGrabowMST said:
... it's a 1997, and yes, both rear locks are stuck in the down position.

I was looking and there appears to be no manual latch for it, so I think we're actually talking about different locks. There are two tabs that come off the bottom of the back of the SL600 top, which lock into cylinders which I guess are hydraulic, and with no fluid, they can't open. I'm not referring to the clips for the middle section of the car that the top folds under, I'm talking about two locking clips that hold the rear of the top down.

Thanks for clarifying your model year. Yes, we are talking about the same locks. It is a common problem for one of the locks in '95+ model years to get stuck in the down position; especially after the hardtop gets removed. When the rear locks don't get pushed up by the hydraulics all the way to the top until they positively latch to stay open, then they can be pushed down again by hydraulic pressure in the opposite direction, or by tools. Actually, this WILL happen to one of your rear locks when you use the hydraulic system after removing the hardtop and one or both latches are not all the way open. It's a design flaw - the hydraulic system will not be able to unlatch empty, latched-closed locks.

As far as both locks being stuck in the down position, that is very rare and difficult to accomplish. However, it is possible when there is practically no fluid left in the system.

Remedy: unlatch the rear locks manually and pull them up, then make sure they are all the way latched open, so they cannot be pushed down again more than a fraction of an inch. The unlatching procedure is not covered in your car's manual. Again, the thread I referenced below covers the procedure: http://www.benzworld.org/forums/r129...-rst-rear.html This procedure covers the unlatching part. For the second step, getting the locks into the positively latched-open position, it is often not enough to just pull up the locking mechanism. This depends on pressure conditions in your system, and in your case you have to do the following:

You need to either take out the lock and push the cylinder up all the way by hand, or, after the lock has been pulled up you can hook a tool on the horizontal pin that goes through the latch receiver, and pull up just a bit more until you hear a click and the lock cannot be pushed down again more than a fraction of an inch - see photos below...

Posted below are some pics out of the above referenced thread to illustrate the manual unlatching, plus pics about pulling up the latches and positively latching them open.

Hope this helps,

-Klaus

klaus@tophydraulicsinc.com

Soft top hydraulics totally dead, I have a strange question

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