Read all you want and it will help. Jon89 and I just kind of looked at each other. There is a whole table of parts and two boxes of screws, nuts and bolts. Rick was unable to attend the party at the last minute, (we ate his share of the spaghetti and pie).
It turned out both had been leaking and the hoses were falling apart. The front and latch had been done. Have worked with Top hydraulics and will send the rams off tomorrow. I will be getting their new hoses for the rear and the new attachment for the bottom of the right one. When or if you ever do your own, you will see the most Mickey Mouse connection on that one, but I must say it was not leaking.
Jon and I will do a complete write up after we get it all back together, we have every torx, nut and bolt sized. Some things are not like they seem from pictures. These things are just floating around on a pivot.
Not a ram issue, but if you are going to take out the speakers, the brace on top of them must come out, who ever had been in there before us did not understand that part and ripped it out, breaking the bottom bracket, don't you just love those PO's.
Anyway, will fill in the blanks at a later date. Thanks to Jon and all his work in getting it done.


Wayne

 

Glad to see you made good headway on the rams. Looking forward to meeting you and ripping my engine apart next Monday for the tensioners.



Dave

 

Wayne,

Glad to assist you. We had a blast, and will have even more of a challenge installing the new rear hoses and then putting everything back together. We should allow 6 to 8 hours for that, I think....

Good luck to you and Dave next Monday with his tensioners. I won't be able to make the trip for that one. I have to get my S-Type A/C issue sorted, perform the 90,000-mile service on Jan's XK8, and then see her off to Florida to visit her mom for a week. I'll stay home and take care of the dogs and Jan's tropical fish. Much better than traveling to hot and humid Tampa....

Keep me posted on when you expect to receive your new hoses and refurbished rams. We want to finish the job while our minds are still relatively fresh since we have a ton of parts to reassemble....

Have fun at the beach this week. I hope Christine was able to make that long trip without too much discomfort....

 

Hi Wayne, yes, I did the complete Top Hydraulics repair in the fall.

They do a fantastic job with the piston overhaul.

Yes, the pistons do move around quite a bit. Do not forget the torsion washer behind the ram piviot point.

Top Hydro uses smaller hoses which are easier to route through out, to include behind the fuse box.

Speaker bracket, previous repair already broke the speaker support. Little crazy glue.
lots of luck, Rich

 

Great stuff guys, looking forward to hearing / seeing more


Good luck

 

Sounds like you guys were having a little fun…

 

Indeed we did, Gus. Feel free to come and join us when we put Wayne's XK8 back together in a couple of weeks....

 

Sorry but I have my own issues with my xk8. Presently have transmission problems and need to do my own rams. Thanks for the offer.

 

Gus, Thanks for the encouragement and you need to do what I should have done. Get a pair of rams first then get you butt down here and we will in stall in one day. I'll put Jon in charge of whip and food, you bring your smile and some cleaning products. Boy, does the seats and carpet look dirty when they come out and under the seats the fluid and dirt needs cleaning. I'm going to use carb cleaner on the fluid in the floor where the wipe up left a bit of a film.
One member got rams first and said it could an extra $100, didn't understand that.
With just the rams and rear hoses and shipping it was almost $800 on the dollar. The whole hose kit with just rams is $1000, and that is not the front latch. Not for the faint of heart.
I think the hoses over the years swell and move around a lot when the top goes up and down, this may cause the flaking in the ram area of the outer black plastic.
Anyway Gus, the offer is there and hope you get the rest sorted out.


Wayne