1995 SL500: Put my top down, drove around town, ain't it great to cruise in a Mercedes SL500. Got home and there is a ton of hydraulic fluid under my rear passenger area. Crawled under there and it seems to have come off of the cover plate under the fuel tank. Checked the Hydraulic Pump reservoir (almost empty). I checked all the cylinders; no leaks (the roof still goes up and down, even with so little fluid . The only leak I could find was the connection of the Hydraulic Reservoir to the hydraulic top system (the cap that you unscrew to fill the reservoir, it has a very fine mesh filter cylinder). When I put the top up/down, it leaks out of the top of the screw cap, where the line is.

Here's my theory: Every time I put the top up/down, some hydraulic fluid leaks out into the trunk, slips out the drain hole and "collects" on the cover plate and then just so happened to dump in my driveway. This is weak; seems to me I should see a leak more regularly.

Here's my question: The cylindrical filter for the hydraulic fluid; with my lips, I can hardly blow air out of it. However, I can suck some air through it (not much). Do these filters go bad? Is there a replacement for this filter? Or does anyone have any other ideas (and it ain't the cylinders; I've repaired a bunch of them, disassembled the back "seat" and there's no fluid in the car, except in the trunk). Thanks in advance, this forum has been a god-send.

 

OK, so I fired up the motor and got under the car, where I saw buckets of gas leaking. Long story short: One of my fuel lines developed a leak near the filter, so the leak I saw under my car was gas, and not hydraulic fluid. Quick fix.

That said, I still lose hydraulic fluid from my reservoir and it still leaks from the cap; is there a replacement filter (or better idea)?