I'm having trouble getting a photo that will tell you much. Maybe this way is better. Here's the thingy in question ...

Metric to JIC adapter

And the size is JIC 1/4" <--> M12x1.5

I thought for sure this was the ticket.

(Is the porno exemption open-ended, or just for one post?)

 

That is the correct adapter.
There is no joint or washer the male and female cones simply mate together.
I think we'll have to be 'excused ****' for this thread !

 

So the latest layer of the onion turned up ...
Metric fittings come in three series ... heavy, light, extra light. Oh, great. Almost certainly, my problem lies in this area. The M12x1.5 is a match but, unlike a standard like JIC, seems this is not enough info to guarantee things will work.

I really want to avoid replacing the elbow fittings in the pump body (to get away from the metrics), not so much for my own case but because it would make this conversion much more involved for other people wanting to use it.

But As of now, I'm nowhere in figuring out how to connect to those metric fittings ... in other words how to duplicate the fitting built into the hose end.

SNAFU.

 

But isn't your problem with the JIC end?
I thought the metric side was copulating as you would expect a French item would.

 

No, I never made it to JIC land. I can't get the metric female side of the adapter to snug against the metric male ... i.e. the male fitting that the hose was removed from.

There was a certain amount of foreplay (M12x1.5 is a match) but in the end it was just dinner and a movie, if you know what I mean.

 

Right. I'd guess you've got a heavy duty female (aren't they all) which has a deeper than standard thread.
If you've got a lathe you could take a skim off the 'nut', otherwise I'm afraid it's back to the supplier.
Aphrodite being her usual capricious self.

 

Almost there now. I've been able to cycle the top with actual (not simulated) manual latch operation in place of the normal hydraulics. But not yet reliably, since I have yet to achieve a reliable seal at the pump ports which normally accept the latch hoses.

Three photos attached, showing ...
- the M12x1.5 metric male thread of a pump port
- the female end of a latch hose (there's some sort of seal built into the tube inside there)
- Port caps used with manual latch operation. These almost, but not quite, seal reliably.

I'm hoping someone with more experience than I with this sort of thing will see this, and put an end to my fittings misery.

All ideas cheerfully accepted.

 

I never really looked but is that elbow threaded into the pump housing? If so may the answer be to remove the elbow and get a plug to thread directly into the pump housing?

 

Post #63

 

Ok here is the thing, one caveat I am basing this on my experience with plumbing not hydraulics a plug is always more reliable than a cap and both should be sealed with some type of permatex type of sealer which is going to basically make any threads unusable in the future. Seems to me that what is needed here is a donor pump for the trial. Just my opinion mind you.

 

It's certainly one way to go, but I'd like to avoid it. Not so much for me, but to make this easy to implement for others.

When I can sort out how to seal the ports where the hoses are normally attached, then we've got something that can be installed and un-installed in about five minutes. Unscrew hoses, cap hose ports, stow hoses.

If we remove the elbows, then it's like an order of magnitude more involved. I may be forced to go there, but holding out for the easy install for now.

Thanks for the input.

 

So think about the average person looking for the same caps you are looking for. The fittings are the ones that come with the replacement hoses from Coliflower so I know they fit the pump.

 

Aha!

So it looks like our hose fittings are something called a "DIN 24 degree light series swivel with o-ring". A pretty common item in some circles (I'm told) but this is all new to me.

Still to be confirmed by actually trying one on, but if this is right it will be easy and cheap to cap the hose ports without disturbing the elbow connectors that go into the pump. (The fittings I've been trying were not quite the right standard for capping these ports.)

I hope to have this all done this week.

 

Once this gets all sorted out and field tested, etc. it would be great if someone could put together a complete kit with clear instructions for sale here. While I and perhaps most people would not likely convert the system to manual as long as things are working fine, it certainly might be a more cost-effective option to go manual if and when a leak starts coming back versus going through a full hose replacement again. At the very least it would be a handy short-term solution until biting the bullet and replacing hoses.

Doug

 

Yes, I agree.
As a daily driver in sunny climes I'd want the fully automatic top but for maybe 50 up/down cycles per year ripping out the car internals and paying several hundred Euros for new hoses just seems like a waste of time + money.
All you need is an Allen key with a nice wooden handle sitting in the glove compartment.

After all - we still open and close the doors manually !

 

I've got chapter and verse pretty much written up on this ... installation, operating procedures ... but have been holding off since I did not have an acceptable solution to capping the ports. (I did not want to require removing the elbow fitttings in the pump body.)

Components on the way to me should(?) get me over this hump. If the very helpful vendor involved is right -- and he had me do several measurements to be sure -- we've got a solution to that for ~ $5.00 per car.

Wednesday or Thursday we'll know, if the creek don't rise.

 

DIN-standard metric fittings received. These are the ones! Latch-hose ports on undisturbed pump elbow fittings sealed off successfully (and really easily, with the right fittings).

Testing (and testing, and testing) top operations with manual latch. So far so good. With a little luck, will post short novel tomorrow.

 

Finally! Way behind schedule, way over budget (experiments, not the end product) but I have a working manual-latch system in my car.

Maybe it's worth starting here with why anybody might want one:
1) In the event of a green shower, manual-latch is an alternative to replacing failed hoses.
2) In the event of a green shower, manual-latch can be used temporarily, until you're able to replace hoses.
3) In a normal system (no green shower), it can prevent a possible shower by taking the latch hoses out of service, for example until it's time to sell the car.
My car is in category 3), and I'm hoping to avoid 1) or 2).

Caveats: there are two aspects to the way this is working so far that I'm not completely happy with; see "room for improvement" within the operating procedures below. I hope these can be improved upon. Also, this is probably not for someone unfamiliar with the workings of the car, since at one point you have to listen to what the hydraulic pump is doing. But for someone who can live with these limitations, it is a reliable, green-shower-proof way to operate the top, and costs about 6 bucks.


Procedures for Raising / Lowering the Convertible Top with Manual-latch:

Edit: the procedures initially posted here for raising / lowering the top have been improved. Optimizing these is a work in progress, and must proceed by trial-and-error since Jaguar did not document how the top would behave when operating the latch manually (they probably did not anticipate that anyone would do this).

Click here for the best raise / lower top procedures developed so far (The same link appears in my "signature line" below).


Mod Required:

We will disconnect the latch hoses at the hydraulic pump, and cap off the pump's hose ports. This can be installed, or un-installed, in 5 to 10 minutes.

Working at the hydraulic pump ... Open the petcock. Mark the latch hoses (the two hoses next to the petcock) so you'll know which is which should you want to re-attach them. Disconnect these hoses by removing their compression nuts. (A small amount of fluid escapes as you do this.) Protect the hose ends if these are in-tact hoses (no green shower) since you may want to use them again. Using caps specified below, cap the pump ports that the hoses had been attached to (easy does it; just snug the compression nuts). Close The petcock.

Latch hoses: if your hose(s) have failed, your only interest is catching escaping fluid (some will be ejected when the latch is moved manually). An empty water bottle or similar should do, and it's probably best to leave this fluid-catcher in place indefinitely ... who knows how long fluid may escape?

If you have in-tact hoses (no green shower) it may be best to maintain fluid in the latch and hoses to keep things from drying out, and to ease the transition should you want to go back to hydraulic-latch. I don't really know if this matters; probably couldn't hurt. I created a reservoir of sorts (water bottle) and submerged the hose ends in a pool of fluid in there. Not elegant, but it works.

Caution! Strange as it sounds, the hydraulic flow rates in the two latch hoses are not equal. So do not try to connect the open ends of these hoses together. At the very least, this will create pressure / vacuum as the latch is moved, which can resist its movement.


Caps for Hose Ports:

The hose fittings are metric: M12x1.5 thread, DIN 24 degree with o-ring, 6 millimeter tube. (Ask me how long it took to figure THAT out!) It's easy to find these, once you know what you're looking for. Each of the two pump ports requires a blanking plug (~ $2.00) and a compression nut (~ $1.00). So overall ~ $6.00. Photos below.

I ordered from a very helpful and knowledgeable fellow named Larry at Malone Specialty Inc. in Mentor, OH. www.malonespecialtyinc.com
Their part numbers: 1506L = compression nut, 1306LSR = blanking plug with o-ring.

(I have no $$ interest here, but hope anyone buying components will give these folks a shot at the business. Very helpful they were when I was wandering in the fittings wilderness. Maybe we could make some sort of bulk purchase if there is interest. They do quantity discounts and they're not really set up well for $6.00 orders. I ordered extras; glad to mail out cap sets at my cost. How does $8 delivered sound? PM please.)


Just Another Band-aid on the System from Hell:

It's not unusual for 10% or more of recent threads here to deal with convertible top issues, almost always the latch or latch hoses. We've attacked this with relief valves, resistors, improved hoses, colorful language, prayer, etc. Manual-latch is another way at it, and you just can't get a green shower if there's no hydraulic fluid hovering above the windshield in the first place. I'll run my car this way for a while to see how I like it, but the idea of protecting the hoses until it's time to sell is looking better all the time. Who knows, maybe a prospective buyer familiar with these issues might view the manual-latch option as a plus?? Maybe.

It might be worthwhile for any rag-top owner to keep a set of hose port caps on hand. That way, if a green shower happens you can mop up, cap the ports, and still have a working top while deciding if/when to replace hoses.

End of story.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes: (just FYIs, not needed to install and operate manual-latch, except maybe 1st item = troubleshooting)


What could possibly go wrong? ... go wrong? ... go wrong?

A bit of air may get into the system when you replace the hoses with caps. The first few operations may be a little choppy.

As with a stock system, it's possible for the car's control system to get confused, two possible results being a "top not latched" message or the rear windows not going up after raising the top. In this regard:
- Begin every raise- or lower-top operation with this sequence ... set ignition key to On or Accessory, raise the latch with the hex key, press the console "Roof" rocker switch.
- If the system gets confused, reset it to this condition: top down, latch closed, ignition key off. Start over from there.


No electrical mods?

In the course of raising or lowering the top, the car's control systems send out certain signals (e.g. "set the latch valve to this state" ... "turn on the pump in this direction") and then wait for certain events that should follow (e.g. "latch is closed"). Here, we operate the latch manually at those times when the system thinks it is operating the latch, so the system has no way to know that it did not actually operate the latch. Error conditions are avoided.

Some ideas have been put forward for electrical mods to the control system for use with manual-latch. IMO it's better not to do this, but rather just to fool the system as we find it. This from my "change as little as possible" bias.


Is it harmful to cap the latch ports on the pump?

The concern here is "deadheading", the condition where the pump is trying to create fluid flow, but can't. It then creates its max pressure, over 1600 PSI in this system. Deadheading does occur twice in a stock system each time we raise or lower the top: once when the latch is opened to start the operation, and again when the latch is closed to complete it. These events seem to contribute to an increased failure rate for latch hoses ... which is how we got here in the first place! (In a car equipped with a relief valve, no deadheading occurs; in a car equipped with voltage reduction there is some deadheading, but it is less severe than in a stock system.)

OK, but with manual-latch we have disconnected the latch hoses, so who cares about deadheading anymore? A possible concern is this: since we've made no electrical mods (we didn't "tell" the car about manual-latch) there could be times when the car "thinks" it needs to open or close the latch and so turns on the pump. Then, if an operator who is unaware of the mod were to hold down the "roof" switch on the console, and not operate the latch manually, a prolonged deadhead could occur (no flow is possible since the pump's hose ports are capped).

Could this harm the pump or other components? I believe the risk is low because ...
- Operated as described above, there is actually LESS deadheading with manual-latch than with a stock system
- There seems to be no history of deadheads being linked to damaging anything other than latch hoses, which again are out of the picture here.
(Of course, anyone who will be using the car of course should be told about the manual-latch mod, and how to use it, to prevent any prolonged deadhead.)

That said, if someone felt that the deadhead issue is more serious, there is a solution. A shunt hose between the latch ports (containing an orifice of, say, .01 - .02 inches) could be substituted for the port caps. This would eliminate deadheading entirely. The procedures for manual-latch operation described sbove would remain the same.

End.

 

Sounds like a result Dennis.

I think I would fall into category 2, I wouldn't want to disable the latch permanently, but your solution would be an ideal workaround in the event of a failure.

 

Well done, I went through a phase of having to give the roof a 'poke' (step 2 lowering) when lowering 'automatically'.
I think it is due to the last microswitch in the latch not closing so not initiating the rams down event.
Try giving your Allen key a bit more grief in the 'open' direction.
What you want is one of these