Repair kit top lock roof cylinder for Mercedes-Benz SL R230 / SLK R170 /SLK R171 (Seal kit to fix external leak of top hydraulic cylinder on upper windscreen frame)

This is the kit for you if you had oil leaking from the headliner. Cheap (and fast with same day prime delivery!) compared to a new cylinder - yeah it’s expensive for a gasket and little locking nut but so far it seems to work well on my 2007 SLK55. To do this you: 1. Remove the headliner (4 screws you can see when the top is open at the very front where it meets the windshield) 2. Remove the lock actuating cylinder from the center of the top towards the windshield. Have a bench with a vice right next to the car on the passenger side you can use to hold it upright after cutting some zip ties that keep the lines in place. You will have enough slack for about a foot past the door opening. 3. Remove the top retainer from the rod that holds the yoke on. I drilled little holes where it was crimped on, put a screwdriver through the yoke holes and hammered upwards on the screwdriver. 4. Protect the piston rod! I’d you don’t this and scratch the rod it’ll cut this new gasket and you’ll leak again and need a whole new unit. Easiest way to do this is a thin walled copper pipe that fits over the rod. This kit would be made better if it included one. An alternative could be a bunch of zip ties or tape. 5. Drill a small hole through the aluminum housing to remove a C clip that retains the nylon stop that keeps the gasket in place. This is about 1mm down from the top. 6. Take the whole piston out, clean it thoroughly, and then put it back in with the new gasket from this kit, then put the C clip back in to retain it all together. Reassemble in reverse order and you should be set! Notes: A. If you need to depressurize the system, there is an access door in the flip down center console between the seats. You break off the circle - make a cut X with a knife and then a 6mm Allen key will go straight to the relieve valve for the pump. B. I didn’t refill the pump, I’m sure it’s a bit low but I caught my leak early enough it’s working fine without it. To refill you have to take a bunch of screws out of the bulkhead, take trim away and flip down some insulation. Shame they didn’t think more about this and just grant access through a door or removable panel. Edit: it cycled for like 3-4 times but once it self bled and no air was in the system, I don’t have enough fluid to operate the front latch (last in the sequence that get pressurized) and will need to refill the pump :( In total I probably spent about 90 minutes of active time on this repair over 2 days (with lots of kid interruptions making it much longer). If I had to do it again I could probably be done in 45 minutes.

Worked beautifully. Took the advice of the other reviewer use a 1/8 drillbit to drill out the original nut that was Pressed on from the factory. Took less than 10 minutes to put it all back together.

This kit worked great! You will need to be capable of removing the entire cylinder with the lines from the car or be able to rebuild the cylinder with the lines still attached to the car. This is what I did. I drilled the side of the cylinder body to access the retaining clip to release the shaft assembly from the aluminum cylinder body. 1/8" drill bit. Once the shaft assembly was removed I drilled out each side of the factory shaft collar with a 1/8" drill bit to remove the old seal and install the new one. I used red loctite on the new collar screws during assembly. It takes finesse to get the new seal into the aluminum body so use something small and not sharp to work the seal into the aluminum body. Reassemble and everything worked great

👍

Me ha salvado de un apuro , ya que el gato ,del techo de mi convertible ,estaba dañado a pesar de poco uso pero de varios años . La instalación muy fácil y funciona muy bien . Con ese kit se ahorra muchísimo dinero , en conseguir y comprar un gato nuevo ,

Fit

Didn’t seal. Cylinder still leaks Also $40 and no instructions.