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I thought I would pass along some info I learned -
TAKE PICTURES - LOTS OF PICTURES. Before you disassemble or remove any body panels, hydraulic lines or cylinders, etc etc take pictures of everything AND include in the photos the surrounding wires, clips, fasteners, hose retainers, etc etc. The reason is so you can route and fasten the hoses and wires correctly in and around the new items you install. Yes, I know you have the memory of a elephant - until you can't decide whether the (wire, hose) should go behind or in front of the framos whatchacallet.
After wrestling with and cursing the left side floor mat (USA version) under which the front latch cylinder hoses are routed and retained by hard to get at tie wraps, I decided to take the entire floor mat out. (You will have previously removed the left side seat.) Just unscrew the round flat plastic retainer to the left of the accelerator pedal. Then pop off the foot rest addition and remove the 2 small bolts holding the foot rest in place and remove it. I removed the center console cover (it made it easier putting it all back together). Then slide the floor mat toward the rear until you can lift it up over the back of the hand brake then slide the floor mat forward until you can lift it up from the front of the hand brake. Although it was a little tough folding the floor mat under the steering wheel, it only took 10 minutes and made working on and reinstalling the new hydraulic lines MUCH MUCH easier.
The black covering on the original hoses disintegrated and flaked off all the hoses leaving a mess in the car and on the garage floor. More reason to remove the front floor mat. If your hoses disintegrated like mine you will need a vacuum cleaner with hoses and attachments to clean up the mess because the little pieces go everywhere as you pull the hoses out.
I bought the full 3 cylinder and 6 hose package from Top Hydraulics and replaced all 6 hoses. They included a connector fitting so you can attach the new hose to the old one. That way as you pull out the old hose it pulls the new one in. (It saved a lot of hassle.) It is a major job.
As the old hoses came out the black rubbery coating flaked off and went everywhere - mostly in places that are hard to get to. Ergo - vacuum cleaner. 3 of the old hoses had NO black coating left on them at all.
I kept one hose in case someday I need to pull something through the back bulkhead into the trunk.
The picture below shows one of the hoses with no black protective coating left at all.
The flat thin black tool on the left I discovered by chance makes removing the gate plate thingy easy instead of using the 2 credit card method (no disrespect intended). All the above tools were from Harbor Freight in various packages.
The blue plastic thing I learned from one of the websites I listed I used to push the foam wrapped wire cable back behind the left dash fuse panel to give access to pull the hoses out of their retainer clip.
The other two items were useful in removing various snap-in plastic and rubber parts.
In the above photo you can see the disintegration of the hose covers and the hose problem everyone has had. The hose did not burst. It blew out of the fitting.
The hose mess - another reason to take out the floor mat.
In the above picture I used a 10 ream paper box in the trunk to support the pump outside of the fender well. This made it easy to work on and after unconnecting the hoses I inverted the pump to drain out all the old fluid. Then I refilled the tank just using a funnel, reconnected the hoses, and activated the pump to purge the lines and get the top opening and closing. I opened and closed it several times and had to add fluid to the pump which was easily done with a funnel. Then I put the pump back in place under the fender. (This way no hassle topping of the pump.)
DavidYau (07-04-2019),dibbit (07-05-2019),Gus (07-04-2019),Johnken (07-04-2019),Jon89 (07-05-2019),sklimii (07-05-2019) and 1 others liked this post. (Show less...)
You are not alone and Forum members’ past experiences were invaluable when I had problems.
I love hydraulic systems, but when they go bad, it’s a real mess. And with our high pressure system, failing pipes and seals are inevitable. Our Hydraulic roof system wasn’t cheap to install, but don’t you wish they put in an electric latch assembly.
With your decent fix, it should last a long time now.
Well done. As you said, documenting every step during disassembly is key. Wayne (cjd777) and I took detailed notes as we worked and stored all the parts in the order they were removed. He worked on one side of the car while I worked on the other side of the car simultaneously....
07-04-2019, 07:17 PM
Green shower info
