rickandgale

Took hardtop off manually but cannot get the rear to lock when trying to reattach. Is there a trick to reset the lock so the pins can go down and be locked with the special tool. Used to special tool to unlock both front and back came off fine. The light for the roll bar is flashing and the light to put the top up and down. Can hear the pump under spare tire after replacing it could not hear it running before. Any help or advise is welcomed. Thanks Rick

Top Hydraulics

Rick,

when taking the hard top off manually on a model year '95 or younger, the rear locks will usually get stuck in the wrong position. Apparently, you already unlocked the hardtop by more or less following the procedure described in the pics below:




When you manually unlock, the rear locks will open and you can take the top off. However, the hydraulic cylinder will not have pushed the lock into its fully open position where it cannot move down again without having received the rear of the hard top or soft top in it. If the locks are not fully opened by a special procedure described below, then the hydraulic system will close (pull down) these locks without the top in them, which will result in an illogical state, as far as the soft top controller is concerned, and the system will not move any more.

Below are some illustrations that show how you can "reset" the locks. It can be quite tricky to do the first time around, or without the correct tool. If you find it too difficult to do with the locks mounted in the car, then you can also take out the rear locks and reset them manually. Here are removal instructions for the rear lock cylinders 1298002172 (aka A129 800 21 72), which include the lock removal: http://www.tophydraulicsinc.com/R129...%20Removal.pdf (You do not have to remove the cylinders from the locks.)

The point is really that the rear locks need to be pushed open as far as the cylinders would do it, resulting in a second click. You can hook a tool from above where the cylinder attaches to the lock inside, or you can push it open with your finger when the lock is removed.

First step:

Second step:


Attached below is an illustration on how to push the lock open by hand once removed.

I hope this helps,

Klaus

www.tophydraulicsinc.com

rickandgale

Picked up the car today from the shop and they got the lock reset. The hardtop is sitting down further now but not all the way and not fully locked. The roll bar light is on and the up and down button for the top is also stays on. Is there a relay I am missing or might the computer control box for the top system be bad. Is there a way to trouble shoot with out taking it to Mercedes and put on there machine to find code faults. What do you think is the best to go foward with this problem.

Top Hydraulics

Rick,

is your roll bar UP, by chance? (That would make your hydraulic top inoperative for now, while you wouldn't be able to lower the roll bar if the top wasn't fully locked. Aka Catch-22. Both can be fixed, of course...)

Klaus

www.tophydraulicsinc.com

rickandgale

The roll bar is in the down position so that is not the reason. If the roll bar is up it might hit the top in its operation. The light is on is that a seperate issue or a combination of whats going on. Maybe the roll bar not being operational is linked to problem with the top not going up and down.

Top Hydraulics

Out of almost 100 models of hydraulic pumps that we are dealing with at Top Hydraulics, R129 pumps are the best ones, together with Bentley and Rolls-Royce. They fail very rarely. When we see these pumps fail, it is usually on account of the wrong liquid having been used, or the pumps having run dry for a long period. The fact that you have already changed the pump, makes me concerned about other work having been done to the hydraulic system previously that might make it hard to track the errors. It appears that there are multiple issues going on at the same time, which makes a remote diagnosis difficult. Let's give it one more stab before recommending that you go to have a dealer or a shop with Star Diagnosis (SDS) read the error codes. (You can ask them to just read the codes and give you a print-out, without selling you any unneeded parts, if you don't trust your dealer.)

My hope is that we can get the hydraulics for the top working without addressing a possible roll bar issue first. You are writing that the top is now sitting down further, but not fully locked. It can be difficult to lock down the rear of the hard top manually on a model year '95-'02. I am assuming that the hard top is already down pretty far in the rear locks, meaning someone has already pulled the release levers and thus managed to move the rear locks almost to latching closed position with the top in them. That means the release lever in the rear of the lock is in limbo - it is not snapping down with spring power. You could give it one more try, starting on the driver side: with the ignition OFF, one person pushes down on the corner of the hard top, while the other one tries to help the lock on the last few millimeters of travel by carefully pushing down that lever with the soft top tool or an open 10-mm wrench. This works only if the rear locks are already almost closed. If it works on the driver side, do the same on the passenger side. The lever on the passenger side is a bit harder to get at, and I would recommend the use of an angled 10-mm wrench instead of the soft top tool.

Once the top is either fully locked in the closed position or fully opened and stored, you can double check on the window synchronization: do the windows drop a fraction of an inch when you open the doors? If not, then you need to synchronize them following the instructions in your owner's manual.

I hope this helps,

Klaus

www.tophydraulicsinc.com

rickandgale

Thanks for the info I think that I am doing the correct things. I have checked the windows and the sync is working the way it should. Called the dealership today and got a estimate of $127 to troubleshoot and the can do it on Thursday. Will let everyone who how it goes so much for the shadetree mechanic. For the money I feel that it is the best thing to do at this time. But I will try to apply pressure to the top and try to lock it down all the way. Thanks Rick

JSabbath

Did you ever get the locks fixed? Im running into the exact same issue (to exact detail) on the same year SL.