Replacing all of the convertible top hydraulics on my 1994 SL320 (R129)
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- Опубліковано 13 лип 2024
- This was a very intense job. It took about 25 hours total for me (spread over 5 days) and I have never done this before. I try to capture my experience as accurately as possible - the good, the bad, lessons learned, and more.
The hydraulic roof cylinders were repaired by @TopHydraulics in Florence, Oregon. Klaus at Top Hydraulics has a GREAT playlist for the R129 that you're going to want to check out here:
• Mercedes R129 SL-Class...
That playlist was essential for when I pulled the parts from a junkyard car before sending them in for repair. I pulled the parts from a 1994 SL500 at Pull N Save South in Phoenix, Arizona. Putting the repaired cylinders back in was more challenging!
Klaus provided great support to me while I went through this process. It was challenging. Besides the Mercedes R129, Top Hydraulics does repairs for a LOT of other cars and they use extremely high quality seals. Check them out here:
www.tophydraulics.com/
Time stamps
Intro and unboxing: (0:00)
First look at the soft top: (0:35)
Starting with the front lock cylinders: (1:13)
Replaced the A pillar trim: (3:13)
Notes about mounting "headliner" trim under the visor: (3:56)
Using the Mercedes tool to manually open tonneau cover: (4:30)
Notes about front distribution block: (4:50)
Notes about how to put securing clips onto cylinder: (5:31)
Notes about the rear cylinder installation: (6:00)
Another note about the securing clips: (7:19)
Showing what's left: (8:01)
Soft top module reset procedure: (8:23)
Describing next steps - taking out the rear trim: (9:50)
Tip for pulling top eyelet of main cylinder up: (11:32)
Notes about bottom of main cylinder: (12:13)
Bow cylinder - notes about bow cylinder microswitch: (12:44)
Fixing situation where line won't go in flush: (14:23)
Rant about dropping parts: (15:33)
Problem where hinge pin is hitting soft top - stopping it from closing: (16:35)
Microswitch re-installed on bow cylinder - demo: (17:13)
What's left - putting wire channel and e-clips on, status update: (17:56)
Problem 1 - notes about tonneau switch: (18:38)
Problem 2 - back won't go into lock cylinder (19:28)
Another rant about dropping parts: (20:41)
Showing location of all 12 cylinders: (21:35)
E-clips put onto bow cylinders: (23:06)
All of the tools I used for the job: (23:35)
Thoughts after finishing the job: (26:55) - Авто та транспорт
Video link for where I replaced the pump:
ua-cam.com/video/fK6qdZ_Nx7U/v-deo.html
Thanks for watching
Brian this is a really great explanatory Vid , only thing is my cylinders need replaced and after watching you fighting with yours has shown me what I dreaded is true , I have been repairing stuff on my SL 500 for the last few years and have done it myself, except the convertible top cos I knew what a pain it was going to be. You are a brave man and did a great job.
Super glad you found it useful! It's definitely not the hardest job I've ever done on a car - but it did take a LOT of patience. With some cold beverages, some good music, and breaks when you get frustrated... you can definitely do it and be in great shape. Putting some grease on the end of the screwdriver when putting the e-clips into place helps too! I appreciate the "brave man" comment - although I think I'm more stubborn 😂 Given enough time, anyone can eventually do it - that's more of the boat I fell into. Learned a TON doing this - I can easily see this being easier the next time and then simple the time after that.
Thanks for taking the time out to make this video. Very helpful!
You're very welcome! I really need to get a body cam (or setup a tripod) so I can show more of what the steps involve in a video. But I think this video does a good job capturing the tips as you get to each area 🙂
Tengo un problemita con el techo a veces funciona y a veces no funciona, necesito ayuda por favor, saludos desde El Salvador
The r129 is my favourite, but i absolutely DESPISE how over-engineered everything is. Especially 25 years later, everything starts breaking at once, everything is so complicated to repair, and due to the lack of r129 parts not being manufactured anymore, you either have to rebuild or get lucky and find NOS, so all repairs are automatically 2x the cost as well.
Excellent video, thank you
Hi! Really good video.. 👌👌
I am really fond of my 2002 CLK430, but the top is a nightmare of German ingenuity. Did Messerschmitts have these problems? That may explain a lot . . .
Nice work. Braver than me. My top still works great but dreading the inevitable.
Thanks! 🙂 Now that it's done and the dust has settled, it wasn't TOO bad. Definitely time intensive though- and patience is key. Pulling a set of cylinders from a junkyard car can keep you busy for a few hours easy and is great practice for when you get to work on your own car. If anything ever comes up, just come back here and ask away 🙂
Your Crazy Good At Repairing Your SL,These Cars Are Beyond Hard To Work On & Everything Breaks Easily,I Have The 500 Running & Backup
300 Not Running With Driver Side Window Down If You Know How To Get It Up Without Power Please Let Me Know,Also The Fuel Lines Broke & There Out Of Reach High Into The Gas Tank With No Room To Get At It With Tools How In The World Did This Not Get Recalled,Looks Like Dropping The Rear Axel Will Do It But That's Out My League,Enjoyed All Your Hard Work So Far I Appreciate It,By The Way Neither Tops Work On Mines,GM.
Any chance you could shoot me a picture of the lines I the trunk? That go to the 2 left and 2 right cylinders. I’m trying to make sure these lines are in the correct spot
I know they are pretty close in length to where they go. Just needing to verify
Sorry I don't have easy access to the car at the moment. I have it covered and stored. But watch the videos by Top Hydraulics on UA-cam! It should help answer all your questions
Question how much did top hydraulics charge for all the rebuilt cylinders and how much was the deposits as I see you had your old cylinders still in place.
Rebuilding the cylinders is $650 and for me, I went to Pull N Save and pulled the cores from a junkyard 1994 SL500 (back in August). So I cleaned them up, mailed them to Klaus and got them back (no deposit needed)
The parts at the junkyard were roughly $200 for all 12 cylinders and the distribution block
@@bsclifton DAM! then I total got screwed! My sad story. I am not really a good diy guy I can do some stuff. So my right main lift went out ..92 500sl...so I did watch Klas videos and decided to try myself to replace the rt main lift cylinder. So I got a rebuilt cylinder from Klaus 350 bucks which included 150 for the cylinder and the balance was deposit. installed it took 8 hrs 2 days 4 hrs each went to try it out and NOTHING top would not work at all. What happened it blew out 4 other cylinders all were leaking which were not leaking before. I gave up and took it to an INDY in Vegas and was charged 1300 for 12 rebuilt cylinders and 1895 to RR those Cylinders 3200+/- To add insult to injury the fricken top does not really work as it should you have to reach back and kinda tap the right rear of the top from the inside to get it to lift the bow and go down ALSO the top really slams down hard when you put it up so I have to kinda put my hand up when it comes down so it does not slam so hard all this did not happen before the cylinders went out my indy says the cables need adjusting for the slamming and offered not explanation on why the top kinda hangs on the right rear lock when going down really bummed me out especially the $ part. Now the fuel accumulator is going out 350 for bosch accumulator and 46 for filter and 300 labor fricken car is bleeding me dry. All though I have had the care 20 years and not put any $ into it but this year totally made up for those 20 years. oh, Klaus is a good dude he gave me 310 back.
@@rioraton ouch - sorry to hear. Usually when one cylinder goes, the rest are not long behind (unless you've already replaced a few). Given these seals on mine were now 29 years old I figure they're old and tired. Better to do them all in one go! If you have access to a junkyard and you're lucky enough to have an SL show up there, that is really great practice for the job. There are a few yards that I watch daily and I learned a lot about what trim breaks and strategies to get to different components on the junkyard car - so when it came time for mine, it was easier. But even then, it's not an easy job as you know (taking out the rear shelf, etc)
Doing the work myself definitely makes me appreciate the work that mechanics do on a daily basis. Given you have a 1992, you have the Bosch Jetronic. The fuel accumulator should be in a "fuel cell assembly" near the rear passenger side wheel. Sounds like you already did it - but I'd replace the fuel pumps while you're at it (there should be two working in tandem) as those go bad too. With a jack and some hose clamps, that's not too bad of a job. But $300 is actually a good price for the labor
And you're right - Klaus is a really good dude 🙂 He's the reason I felt ambitious enough to take this job on and he was kind enough to support me via email as I worked through issues. Choosing Top Hydraulics was an important part of the decision - and the new seals should be good for as long as 50 years
@@bsclifton Yep, that is what I was thinking do them all. You know you make a good point about practicing on a junk yard car unfortunately I am very rural and do not have one around me but to your point my instrument cluster was flashing when I used the turn signal some years ago I saw a UA-cam video on the issue and how to fix so i bought a used cluster and practiced on it and to my surprise I fixed the MF my self and I shocked my self. I was going to ask you another question how the hell did you get 12 cylinders for 650 are you a shop cuz had I submitted all 12 cylinders klaus wanted 150 bucks each to rebuild so it would of cost me 1800 even if I did it my self you got it for 2/3 off. If you do not want to answer that is cool I like your r129 videos OH, ya one more thing IF you get your back window replaced put a video up on that and where you went or how you did it cuz I need mine done too another 1500 bucks :( these cars are a fricken $ pit
Looks like it's up to $700 now - www.tophydraulics.com/r129-sl-97-02/25-3255-full-set-r129.html#/30-core_exchange-send_your_parts_to_top_hydraulics_first/39-model_year-1990
But yeah, this is the price if you already have extra cylinders on hand and you mail them in (which is what I did). There's a cost for shipping (~$15) and like I said, I got the extra cylinders for about $200 at the junkyard. So total cost for someone doing that same route should be ~$915. If you go that route, Top Hydraulics might buy back the extra cores OR you can sell them on eBay or BenzWorld to get your money back
hello chief, I have the problem, the arch remains blocked in the low position, and nothing works, it only clicks. did you find the problem yourself. Many thanks to you. Cordially
Hey there! You're having the soft top stowed away and trying to raise it, right? From that point, the car should unlock the tonneau cover and then (once unlocked) use lift cylinder to lift the tonneau cover. If that isn't happening or it's stuck clicking, you can use the R129 tool (it's like an open wrench on one side and then a hex bolt on the other side) to manually unlock the tonneau cover. I would try that as a next step. If you have an earlier model, there are 2 locks (one on each side). If you have a newer one, it's only on the right (US passenger) side. After unlocking, you can even raise the manual tonneau cover yourself.
Basically, use the tool to and try to manually move the top along the steps that it will try. The top operation is hydraulic so you shouldn't hear clicking unless a lock or latch is being actuated (ex: tonneau lock is confused and locks instead of unlocks). Once you get to a certain step, the soft top controller will be in sync with the actual top state. I usually try to operate the top enough that it's on the last step for being up - front of roof is on top of the windshield, tonneau cover is down, and the bow is down on top of the tonneau cover. Then you can use the top button (pushing forward) to finish closing it. That should get it into sync. Then pulling button backwards will unlatch front, use main cylinders to move roof backwards, raise tonneau cover, etc.
@@bsclifton Thank you, so how do you manage to unlock the arch because it is blocked at the bottom and only hears a click with all the buttons.
@@schmago1348 are you talking about the roll bar? That can be up or down, doesn't matter for soft top operation. That is spring loaded; when it's in the up position that's the "at rest" state. To move it down, hydraulic power is supposed to be used which compresses the spring. If the roll bar isn't going down, you could have a leak in the hydraulics there. As I understand, it's fairly rare for those to have issues.
@@bsclifton So it's in the down position indeed. and nothing unlocks avwc no button is activated the hood, metal roof even, I had to unlock manually. no leak in the hydraulic circuit, it's just a click at the level of the three solenoids on the passenger side in the hood compartment.
@@schmago1348 I don't think there's enough information here for me to troubleshoot. Basically, you need to use the R129 tool (part number 129-581-00-66) to remove the hard top. You turn the two lock cylinders at the top of the windshield and then you can use the tool in tonneau cover to open the lid and then you can unlock the rear latch cylinders from the trunk. It's all in the manual. Operate the roof manually, then you should be able to figure out where it gets stuck. No noises should be coming from the hood - that isn't related to the top operation.
Hello my friend you make a mistake on de left cilinder with the Micro switch. You change the hydrolic line in de wrong hole. Thats why the roof is jam. I make also the mistake. After changing the hydrolic line on the micro switch cilinder the roof work perfect. Bye from the Nederland.Succes
I definitely considered that - and I did run into that too, because it would get caught on the line. But in this case, the root cause was the bolt being too thick. When I had the soft top repaired, the people were able to fix the alignment of the metal and then put a new bolt in. And that got it fixed up nicely 🙂 Thanks for watching and thanks also for sharing a very common mistake
Did you really need to take everything off in the front? replaced my front cylinders and I only took off the header.As far as the broken trim pieces, just about everything was broken in mine when I bought it.What I did was JB welded it.I bought paint that perfectly matched the interior at Michael's. Saved money on overpriced parts.
You might only need to remove the parts on the underside if you're replacing the distribution block. In my case, I replaced that and had some other "while you're in there" projects. The electrical connector for the sunvisor (what powers the mirror light) was missing on one side, I had some broken parts with the mirror. To be extra sure, I would highly recommend watching the video by TopHydraulics ua-cam.com/video/tu16hvKg-a4/v-deo.html
The next one of these cars I do I’m gonna shoot a video because bless your heart and all of the rest of you that make videos on how to replace these rams you make it so much more difficult than it is a five-year-old to do that literally. It’s not that difficult and the entire video should be no longer than 20 minutes max. FYI.
Please do shoot a video, especially since you mention it should be easy. You can reply here and share a link
Most of my content is not a "how to" as there are better resources. In this case, it would be extremely hard (in my opinion) to beat the ones by Klaus here:
ua-cam.com/play/PLly4CMbpk7ozZhPebPkolj47fLed1joK8.html
My videos are more of a project journal. I call out special things I had to do or things which weren't obvious to me. They're all part of the playlist where I am restoring this particular car:
ua-cam.com/play/PLc713pFuJyE3_3KHQ_3PCB5oO_Iblfoc8.html
Thanks for watching