Dear MrMarco, EXCELLENT description and detail of how to replace the hydraulic cylinder on the SL500 (R230). I did replaced both cylinders on my 04 SL500 it took me 1 day following your instructions! compare to replace my 02 911 Porsche I did it in 1 week for one only. Thanks again! Gerry Dieck
At minute 3:30 into the video, the instructions are to just lift up on the plastic piece to remove it. That piece must have been removed before the video was made because in my car two retainers had to be removed prior to the piece coming out. I recommend using a mirror and a light to locate these retainers as they are on the back side of the plastic piece and can't be seen without light.
Thank you so much for making this video. I've had my r230 for a few years and am about to part ways with it. Wouldn't you know it with a buyer test drive scheduled The trunk locking cylinder on the passenger side stopped working. After looking up cylinder cost and tearing my hair out I caught a break: One of the screws that you point out had actually fallen out and was laying on top of the Piston. How it didn't fall down I don't know but damn am I grateful! After getting the pieces lined up the screw went in tightened right up and everything is good again... until the next thing 😄 🤯
You must love your car! Great detail. You give me the confidence to work on my R230. I sm always nervous when pulling and tugging on trim pieces that have plastic clips holding them in place. REALLY appreciate the name of the companies that will rebuild the cylinder.
@@MrMarco6900 Hello, I see that you do a lot by the roof I have a problem no one can solve it You have encountered such a problem ua-cam.com/video/MeFwsjkj-74/v-deo.html&feature=emb_logo
MrMarco - you are amazing. Thanks for the detailed vids giving me the confidence to attack some of these jobs on my own. Hope you are enjoying life on Marco Island.
Mr Marco Followed your videos for cylinder replacement and appreciated the work that you did. I'm going to be doing the right trunk frame lock cylinder as described in this video and have a question. I followed your video and started the roof retraction program except that the paws came out before the roof stopped. You recommended that not happen Then everything stopped because of the low fluid level in the pump. I want to get all the work completed correctly so I can complete the roof retraction program without problems after the work is done. Here is my problem that I can see coming. When you unlocked your trunk with your key in the video to put it in the service position, the trunk opened with some force. So did mine. When I have completed all the work I can see that I am going to have problems locking the trunk again from the service position as the front of the trunk lid is up in the air. Seeing the potential problem I tried to close the trunk lid lock to the lock on the frame - it does not want to come together. Force would have to be applied and I certainly don't want to do that. There are stops on that trunk mechanism and I have no idea if mine are set correctly. I think they are not and that is why the mechanism won't let the trunk lid go where it needs to go. Your video does not cover the trunk closing so I don't know if you had problems or not in this area. There is a Mercedes factory video showing them closing the roof manually and naturally their trunk mechanism does what I am describing with no effort at all on the technician's part. Hope you can comment on my problem.
Make sure your cylinder assembly arm is in the same position as it is at timestamp 7:30 in the video. I believe i had the same problem and had to push the arm all the way up, back to it's original position. You might have to relieve the pump pressure to move the arm.
@@MrMarco6900 By cylinder assembly arm you mean the aluminum piece on which the cylinder sits? My trunk is in the service position right now and I think that area on my car looks the same as your video at 7:30 looks. You say you had to push the assembly arm up back to its original position. I assume you mean before you could move the assembly from the service position and close the trunk. I don't know what you mean by pushing the arm up back to its original position. I'll have to research what the original position is supposed to look like. In the video at 7:30 there is a black roller supported by a steel piece that is above the cylinder. Any movement of the assembly will change the location of the roller. Can you tell me where the rollers ( both sides) should be prior to my trying to move the trunk from the service position to close it? I appreciate your checking for questions. I have a lot of work to do before I'll want to close the trunk. I wanted to get my question asked as I didn't know when or if you would reply.As you can tell, I don't totally understand what you are suggesting that I need to do. You know there are rubber stoppers ( two on each arm) like door stoppers on each arm. Do you know what their purpose is? When I tried to push the trunk to close it, I felt like I had run into something like a door stopper? It did not want to go further. I don't want to complicate things - if you think they are not relevant then forget my question.
I went back and look at your video at :35. There the cylinder and the support arm orientation are parallel with the floor. Is this the original position you are talking about? I also see one of those "door stops" I ask about is in that view. Still not sure what the purpose is of that piece? It also occurred to me that if I can't get the trunk back in the exact position to actually lock it, what would happen if I locked the trunk lock so the roof retraction program thinks the trunk is in a different place than it actually is and then run the program until its completion. Would I end up with the trunk just being in a partially open position? I'm not advocating doing this, I was just thinking about what would happen. I am not interested in experimentation unless there is a fundamental reason to try this option. I just wanted to mention the approach.
At time :35, the trunk has been opened normally and the lock cylinder is in the down position. At 7:30 the trunk was opened to the service position and is in the up position. If you are trying to close the trunk from the service position, the cylinder should be in the up position. Actually you can just look at the left cylinder and match it's position.
@@MrMarco6900 OK thanks for the information on the cylinder positions. I'm going to go ahead and do the work first and see where I am when I want to close the trunk from the service position after I have installed the new cylinder. Now that I know you check this site if think I will have a problem closing the trunk, I'll contact you again with the situation as it exists then. I have to replace the impeller on my PSE pump because even with a repaired soft close air controller the pump was not shutting off when it should. The PSE pump is not putting out enough pressure during the soft lock step. Also the linkage between the air controller and the trunk lock had to be reset because I got it out of alignment and the trunk lock using the key and handle would not operate properly. The remote trunk unlock stopped working around the time I was working on this other stuff and I'm not sure what is going on there. That is the one thing that always worked. My hockey puck was almost new looking although I glued it anyway at one spot where the stress cracking was just starting. I get nothing out of the remote trunk unlock at the moment. If I soft close the lock with a screwdriver the red light on the driver's door goes out so I think I should be able to unlock the lock using the remote even if the car is in the service position. At least I fixed the linkage and the trunk key opener!
Excellent video! My 2004 r230 won't quite close on the passenger side, acts like it's hitting something that prevents it from closing. Left side closes, but right side is about 2 inches open.Could this be because the right cylinder is not pulling it down all the way? I can't get trunk unlocked with key, any ideas? Thanks fo any help. Fred
Actually that happened to me some time after I installed the right side cylinder. The trunk lid wouldn't close all the way, the lid was sticking up a few inches on the passenger side. The short screw on the latch had backed out. Check that screw and compare the positions of the right and left side latch mechanism. Make sure you put some loctite on those short screws if they have been taken out.
@@MrMarco6900 Thanks for your fast reply. I'll check it out. I had the feeling that the locking cylinder wasn't working (moving). Is that even possible ?
Can you see the latch in your video? I fixed the rattle in my gas tank with a magnet, I wish I had seen your video to see how and what to remove (all the panels and screws). Super informative!!!!!
Yes, go to time 7:42 that is the bolt/screw I'm taking about. If it backs out, the cylinder won't work. You should be able to see it without removing anything, you might have to pull the carpet/panel back a little.
Great video sir! You have a new sub! I was trying to tackle the main cylinder over the windshield but i was interested in running the new cylinder and is lines on the driver side from front to back. Not sure if you have done this before but I'm stuck in a situation where i cannot get the lines to come out where it meets the rear piller near the back seat. Any help would be appreciated!
That was the first one I did. That is about the only cylinder you can repair yourself. Just roll the window down and put a towel over the door and hang the cylinder over the door and you can work on it there. I used a standard o-ring kit from ebay and it's held up for many years now. I see on ebay they now have the original cup type oring also. If you want to send it off for repair, I would think you would need to pull the hoses off from the pump side and pull them thru to the front. I you still can't get them thru you might have to take some panels off. You can also cut the hoses and buy hose couplers from cabriohydraulics, they are pretty pricey but that is an option. You can see them in my Roll bar cylinder video. Thank you for the comments!!
Question - At 6.59 in your vid, I can see the top of the right hand strut which I need to get to in order to swap out the height sensor. In your experience, is there a way to get to this WITHOUT taking off all the bits up to 6.59 in your vid.( eg do I need to remove the cover and centre section + the right hand panel to get to the strut?) And just in case you haven't been told recently - great detailed video. Mike
@@MrMarco6900 Thanks for your reply. I guess we'll soon find out....just waiting for a iCarsoft scanner to arrive to see if it will pick up the same fault as STAR and then I'm going in for my first SL55 repair. I'm intrigued to find out how easy it is to swap out the height sensor and also if i need to clear any fault codes or recalibrate anything afterwards. Mike
I have a question about the right trunk lid lock cylinder changeout itself. You used Cabrio Hydraulics for the roll bar replacement cylinder. I'd like to use them for the right trunk lid lock cylinder changeout. I did the cylinder near the back of the car (the one with short lines) and had to get into that hydraulic nest in the back of the pump. Doing that work in S Fl in Aug with no AC was no fun. I'd really not have to get into that area again so soon. As you know the lines for the cylinder in question come into the most difficult area of the pump to work on. Since you have used the standard way and the CabrioHyraulics way I wanted to get your opinion on the subject.
In my opinion using the hose couplers is no problem. I don't see them ever leaking if you install them correctly. BUT they cost $40 each. Removing the trunk panels to get the cylinder out is a bit of work and an elevated chance of breaking the little plastic covers at time 2:30. So $80 extra the easy way, save $80 the hard way. When doing the roll bar cylinders I would definitely recommend using the repair couplers. Also, cabriohydraulics is out of stock currently of the couplers and they say no stock until early Sept. If you're in hurry looks like you'll have to go the hard way.
Great video!!! I am looking to replace most of the hydraulic cylinders. Do you happen to know where can I find a video like this, but the remaining cylinders? Thanks !!
Just go to top hydraulics and get all of them. It is a pain in the ass to do. You will suffer. The rest will leak. I just finished restoring my 03 sl500. did all of them and all of the abc. then all of most everything.
Thank you so much for this video it is absolutely excellent and help me out in many ways, dealing with trunk and top problems, The O-ring you used to slip over the Clevis where did you purchase that? Do you have any specs on that O-ring, again thank you so much for the video very helpful “good job , STEVE O
Dear MrMarco, EXCELLENT description and detail of how to replace the hydraulic cylinder on the SL500 (R230). I did replaced both cylinders on my 04 SL500 it took me 1 day following your instructions! compare to replace my 02 911 Porsche I did it in 1 week for one only. Thanks again! Gerry Dieck
At minute 3:30 into the video, the instructions are to just lift up on the plastic piece to remove it. That piece must have been removed before the video was made because in my car two retainers had to be removed prior to the piece coming out. I recommend using a mirror and a light to locate these retainers as they are on the back side of the plastic piece and can't be seen without light.
Thank you so much for making this video. I've had my r230 for a few years and am about to part ways with it. Wouldn't you know it with a buyer test drive scheduled The trunk locking cylinder on the passenger side stopped working. After looking up cylinder cost and tearing my hair out I caught a break: One of the screws that you point out had actually fallen out and was laying on top of the Piston. How it didn't fall down I don't know but damn am I grateful! After getting the pieces lined up the screw went in tightened right up and everything is good again... until the next thing 😄 🤯
You must love your car! Great detail. You give me the confidence to work on my R230. I sm always nervous when pulling and tugging on trim pieces that have plastic clips holding them in place. REALLY appreciate
the name of the companies that will rebuild the cylinder.
Oh yes, I do love my car, thanks! I also do love the money I save by doing this myself. I couldn't imagine how much Mercedes would charge to do this.
@@MrMarco6900 Hello, I see that you do a lot by the roof I have a problem no one can solve it You have encountered such a problem ua-cam.com/video/MeFwsjkj-74/v-deo.html&feature=emb_logo
@@MrMarco6900 between 9600 and 11000
I watched your roll bar video also, excellent job explaining the task. Thank you! We all appreciate you!
Thank you for sharing.
MrMarco - you are amazing. Thanks for the detailed vids giving me the confidence to attack some of these jobs on my own. Hope you are enjoying life on Marco Island.
Mr Marco Followed your videos for cylinder replacement and appreciated the work that you did. I'm going to be doing the right trunk frame lock cylinder as described in this video and have a question. I followed your video and started the roof retraction program except that the paws came out before the roof stopped. You recommended that not happen Then everything stopped because of the low fluid level in the pump. I want to get all the work completed correctly so I can complete the roof retraction program without problems after the work is done. Here is my problem that I can see coming. When you unlocked your trunk with your key in the video to put it in the service position, the trunk opened with some force. So did mine. When I have completed all the work I can see that I am going to have problems locking the trunk again from the service position as the front of the trunk lid is up in the air. Seeing the potential problem I tried to close the trunk lid lock to the lock on the frame - it does not want to come together. Force would have to be applied and I certainly don't want to do that. There are stops on that trunk mechanism and I have no idea if mine are set correctly. I think they are not and that is why the mechanism won't let the trunk lid go where it needs to go. Your video does not cover the trunk closing so I don't know if you had problems or not in this area. There is a Mercedes factory video showing them closing the roof manually and naturally their trunk mechanism does what I am describing with no effort at all on the technician's part. Hope you can comment on my problem.
Make sure your cylinder assembly arm is in the same position as it is at timestamp 7:30 in the video. I believe i had the same problem and had to push the arm all the way up, back to it's original position. You might have to relieve the pump pressure to move the arm.
@@MrMarco6900 By cylinder assembly arm you mean the aluminum piece on which the cylinder sits? My trunk is in the service position right now and I think that area on my car looks the same as your video at 7:30 looks. You say you had to push the assembly arm up back to its original position. I assume you mean before you could move the assembly from the service position and close the trunk. I don't know what you mean by pushing the arm up back to its original position. I'll have to research what the original position is supposed to look like. In the video at 7:30 there is a black roller supported by a steel piece that is above the cylinder. Any movement of the assembly will change the location of the roller. Can you tell me where the rollers ( both sides) should be prior to my trying to move the trunk from the service position to close it?
I appreciate your checking for questions. I have a lot of work to do before I'll want to close the trunk. I wanted to get my question asked as I didn't know when or if you would reply.As you can tell, I don't totally understand what you are suggesting that I need to do.
You know there are rubber stoppers ( two on each arm) like door stoppers on each arm. Do you know what their purpose is? When I tried to push the trunk to close it, I felt like I had run into something like a door stopper? It did not want to go further. I don't want to complicate things - if you think they are not relevant then forget my question.
I went back and look at your video at :35. There the cylinder and the support arm orientation are parallel with the floor. Is this the original position you are talking about? I also see one of those "door stops" I ask about is in that view. Still not sure what the purpose is of that piece?
It also occurred to me that if I can't get the trunk back in the exact position to actually lock it, what would happen if I locked the trunk lock so the roof retraction program thinks the trunk is in a different place than it actually is and then run the program until its completion. Would I end up with the trunk just being in a partially open position? I'm not advocating doing this, I was just thinking about what would happen. I am not interested in experimentation unless there is a fundamental reason to try this option. I just wanted to mention the approach.
At time :35, the trunk has been opened normally and the lock cylinder is in the down position. At 7:30 the trunk was opened to the service position and is in the up position. If you are trying to close the trunk from the service position, the cylinder should be in the up position. Actually you can just look at the left cylinder and match it's position.
@@MrMarco6900 OK thanks for the information on the cylinder positions. I'm going to go ahead and do the work first and see where I am when I want to close the trunk from the service position after I have installed the new cylinder. Now that I know you check this site if think I will have a problem closing the trunk, I'll contact you again with the situation as it exists then.
I have to replace the impeller on my PSE pump because even with a repaired soft close air controller the pump was not shutting off when it should. The PSE pump is not putting out enough pressure during the soft lock step. Also the linkage between the air controller and the trunk lock had to be reset because I got it out of alignment and the trunk lock using the key and handle would not operate properly. The remote trunk unlock stopped working around the time I was working on this other stuff and I'm not sure what is going on there. That is the one thing that always worked. My hockey puck was almost new looking although I glued it anyway at one spot where the stress cracking was just starting. I get nothing out of the remote trunk unlock at the moment. If I soft close the lock with a screwdriver the red light on the driver's door goes out so I think I should be able to unlock the lock using the remote even if the car is in the service position. At least I fixed the linkage and the trunk key opener!
nice, no stupid music, straight talking !
thank you for sharing your expertise !!!!
Excellent video! My 2004 r230 won't quite close on the passenger side, acts like it's hitting something that prevents it from closing. Left side closes, but right side is about 2 inches open.Could this be because the right cylinder is not pulling it down all the way? I can't get trunk unlocked with key, any ideas? Thanks fo any help. Fred
Actually that happened to me some time after I installed the right side cylinder. The trunk lid wouldn't close all the way, the lid was sticking up a few inches on the passenger side. The short screw on the latch had backed out. Check that screw and compare the positions of the right and left side latch mechanism. Make sure you put some loctite on those short screws if they have been taken out.
@@MrMarco6900 Thanks for your fast reply. I'll check it out. I had the feeling that the locking cylinder wasn't working (moving). Is that even possible ?
Can you see the latch in your video? I fixed the rattle in my gas tank with a magnet, I wish I had seen your video to see how and what to remove (all the panels and screws). Super informative!!!!!
Yes, go to time 7:42 that is the bolt/screw I'm taking about. If it backs out, the cylinder won't work. You should be able to see it without removing anything, you might have to pull the carpet/panel back a little.
Great video sir! You have a new sub! I was trying to tackle the main cylinder over the windshield but i was interested in running the new cylinder and is lines on the driver side from front to back. Not sure if you have done this before but I'm stuck in a situation where i cannot get the lines to come out where it meets the rear piller near the back seat. Any help would be appreciated!
That was the first one I did. That is about the only cylinder you can repair yourself. Just roll the window down and put a towel over the door and hang the cylinder over the door and you can work on it there. I used a standard o-ring kit from ebay and it's held up for many years now. I see on ebay they now have the original cup type oring also.
If you want to send it off for repair, I would think you would need to pull the hoses off from the pump side and pull them thru to the front. I you still can't get them thru you might have to take some panels off. You can also cut the hoses and buy hose couplers from cabriohydraulics, they are pretty pricey but that is an option. You can see them in my Roll bar cylinder video. Thank you for the comments!!
Question - At 6.59 in your vid, I can see the top of the right hand strut which I need to get to in order to swap out the height sensor. In your experience, is there a way to get to this WITHOUT taking off all the bits up to 6.59 in your vid.( eg do I need to remove the cover and centre section + the right hand panel to get to the strut?) And just in case you haven't been told recently - great detailed video. Mike
Can't say for sure Mike, but you might be able to get to it from the side if you only remove the center piece.
@@MrMarco6900 Thanks for your reply. I guess we'll soon find out....just waiting for a iCarsoft scanner to arrive to see if it will pick up the same fault as STAR and then I'm going in for my first SL55 repair. I'm intrigued to find out how easy it is to swap out the height sensor and also if i need to clear any fault codes or recalibrate anything afterwards. Mike
Thank you very helpful... I have a few more issues I really would like your help?
I have a question about the right trunk lid lock cylinder changeout itself. You used Cabrio Hydraulics for the roll bar replacement cylinder. I'd like to use them for the right trunk lid lock cylinder changeout. I did the cylinder near the back of the car (the one with short lines) and had to get into that hydraulic nest in the back of the pump. Doing that work in S Fl in Aug with no AC was no fun. I'd really not have to get into that area again so soon. As you know the lines for the cylinder in question come into the most difficult area of the pump to work on. Since you have used the standard way and the CabrioHyraulics way I wanted to get your opinion on the subject.
In my opinion using the hose couplers is no problem. I don't see them ever leaking if you install them correctly. BUT they cost $40 each. Removing the trunk panels to get the cylinder out is a bit of work and an elevated chance of breaking the little plastic covers at time 2:30. So $80 extra the easy way, save $80 the hard way. When doing the roll bar cylinders I would definitely recommend using the repair couplers. Also, cabriohydraulics is out of stock currently of the couplers and they say no stock until early Sept. If you're in hurry looks like you'll have to go the hard way.
@@MrMarco6900 Thanks for giving your opinion. That is what I'll do. As you can read below, I have other things to do prior to Sept.
Excellent video
Thank you, this was a very helpful.
Top explainantion love it great Job helped me alot !!!! ********* Thanks alot Feb.20221
Great video!!! I am looking to replace most of the hydraulic cylinders. Do you happen to know where can I find a video like this, but the remaining cylinders? Thanks !!
No, sorry, that's mostly why I made this video because I couldn't find any other detailed video's on how to get these cylinders out.
MrMarco6900 thank you very much for the fast response!
you have to buy the star diag. I did all 11 in my 03
what size seal on the cylinder
Not sure about the size, but I have a link to the correct seal in the description. Also listed is what may work for an o-ring type seal.
Just go to top hydraulics and get all of them. It is a pain in the ass to do. You will suffer. The rest will leak. I just finished restoring my 03 sl500. did all of them and all of the abc. then all of most everything.
Thank you so much for this video it is absolutely excellent and help me out in many ways, dealing with trunk and top problems, The O-ring you used to slip over the Clevis where did you purchase that? Do you have any specs on that O-ring, again thank you so much for the video very helpful “good job , STEVE O
now you only have 10 more cylinders to replace.
Rio P