Replacing Top Hoses/Cylinders/Pump - No Action?

[Alan H. Tast]

Detail view of the right deck lid cylinder - the fitting was leaking between the hose and the bottom port of the cylinder, but constant wind pressure on the raised deck lid while displaying it caused either a hose or seals in the cylinders to fail.

Note "puddle" under rear of car - this eventually turned into an oil slick in the parking lot.

Now it's time for me to ask for help. I finally got the Roadster in to replace blown top hydraulic hoses (was still original 56+ year old ones), pump & cylinders. As I'm swamped with my job, I have to "bite the bullet" and hire someone to do the work for me this time. There is a restoration shop just north of where I work that specializes in '60s Fords/Mustangs/Lincolns/etc., and I have been working with them for some time on various things. When I explained what was going on and what I had set aside to take care of the blown hoses, the response was "sounds like a simple R&R job to me," and I had no reason to doubt that assumption. Took it in yesterday - we were able to manually open the deck lid (2 people) for first time since May 2017 - system had lost all fluid 2 years ago at a show, so there was no resistance to pulling the lid up. Shop left existing system hooked up and pulled out of car, i.e. didn't unhook lines to cylinders/pump, then manually lifted the top to access the lines and top cylinders, assembled new cylinders/hoses/pump outside of car and installed, bled system, then manually lowered the top. Everything reassembled back as it was found.

By now it's around 4 in the afternoon today. What comes next has the mechanic stumped. Applied power to the system, and....nothing. No pump working, just clicking at the circuit breaker near the passenger side headlight bucket. In fact, when we engage the battery cut-off switch the breaker immediately clicks, then is silent for a about a minute and then clicks again, as if there is a load being drawn on the breaker, i.e. some switch is open or closing. Now, bear in mind, the rear deck lid is up (was lifted manually), flipper tray is extended, top is in the trunk, and supposedly nothing should have been jarred as far as limit switches getting out of adjustment.

At this point in the afternoon I got a call from the shop asking if I had any manuals - within 15 minutes I was at the shop with reprints of the diagnostic procedures first published in "Thunderbird Illustrated" in 1976 along with several emails from tbird and John Brewer from the Denver area (the guy who redoes 64-66 deck lid rotary switches and specializes in '61-'67 Lincoln convertibles) on how to bleed the system (the guy I'm working with has been dealing with a few Lincoln ragtops recently, so that's somewhat of a good sign). And, of course, I had copies of the '62 Shop Manual and '63 Supplement in the car that I had forgotten about, so in theory everything's there for the mechanic to track down the problem (I hope). So we lifted the tonneau off the car so that he could remove the rear seat if needed once the top is up. And that was the end of today's activity since it was about 5:30 in the afternoon and time to close for the day.

So, anyone out there care to hazard a guess why the breaker is kicking on and off, and why the top pump and electromechanical system isn't doing what it's supposed to do? It's probably something very rudimentary and simple - at least we hope it is.

[tbird]

Alan
What did they touch on the electrical side? Sounds like a short but could be that the system is locked up like a solenoid not connected or stuck, this can happen on these old solenoid. My 62 had two of the three solenoid stuck used a couple of tricks on then and did get them operating, guess what then the third solenoid froze took some playing but did get it free all three are working perfectly today. If the breaker is tripping I assume that it is the big 60 amp round one mounted in the grill in front of the rad by the horn, it could be weak or a overload. Do these guy's have a clamp on D.C. Amprobe with a peak hold on it? if so it will tell you what peak amp draw is before it trips.

Other possibility is hoses hooked up wrong or possibly a faulty pump motor, I had a situation where I had one relay energized all the time so the top was trying to do two opposites happening at once took awhile to figure that one out.

[Jim Wulf]

Alan,

In all my years of working on these cars, I've never heard that breaker click. Are you sure you're not hearing the power window relay on the firewall? Have you tried adjusting the neutral safety switch? That will stop everything from working at the outset,

[RAVEN]

Alan, you say that when you connect battery power, the Main supply breaker appears to "trip", the only function it serves is to provide power to the trunk relay buss bars, for individual step functions. First thing I would do is to disconnect the Black 8 gauge wire feed at the Left hand relay bank (per shop manual 62/63 schematic, Fig 5 Part 11-4 ) and see if the breaker holds. If it does, you have proven out that the breaker and cable front to back is "OK" and short is in the left or right relay banks. Next step is separate the banks and prove out them not being grounded. Remember the relays are all NO contacts so if working correctly should not be passing voltage and causing a current draw or short.
The 8 gauge Black wire only serves one purpose and that is to provide the power for relay contact supply to initiate top operation.
The control circuit which controls the relays comes from another power source.
Hope I explained it clearly enough.

[Alan H. Tast]

Alan,

In all my years of working on these cars, I've never heard that breaker click. Are you sure you're not hearing the power window relay on the firewall? Have you tried adjusting the neutral safety switch? That will stop everything from working at the outset,

Jim: When the mechanic called to ask me to bring literature/manuals Thursday afternoon, I immediately went up there to survey what was going on, and he demonstrated what I described. It definitely wasn't the safety relay on the firewall. I have a battery disconnect switch at the ground post for the battery. Without even touching the top switch, when the battery disconnect was closed and the electrical system energized, the 60A relay (the round one on the side of the passenger inner fender between the battery and the headlights) immediately went 'click' and then about a minute later clicked again, and continued to click until we disconnected the battery. His comment was that after they installed the new hoses and cylinders, they hot-wired the hydraulic solenoids to get them to open and to run the pump to bleed the system. When they tried to use the top switch, nothing happened except for the relay cycling on and off. At this point is was 5:00 pm and time to call it a day.

How far they got yesterday I don't know - I'm pretty buried with with two submittals going out the door in the next few days and literally living in the office except to go home for a few hours' of sleep, then repeat the process, so I didn't get any time to visit the shop and see where they got with trouble-shooting. I know they had a few other customers' cars that had to get out of their shop, so they may have not done much yesterday. I will have to wait until lunch on Monday to get back there to follow up on what they've been able to trace down.

[Jim Wulf]

Since you've verified that, the thing to do is follow the procedure that Wally outlined so well above. Apparently the only components that were touched electrically were the solenoids, so it's difficult to understand what could go wrong with the electrical system during a simple hose replacement. As an aside, and perhaps this is meaningful, I've never bled a system that way. I've always just cycled the top several times and added fluid as necessary during the "top raised" step, which is the recommended procedure.

[tbird]

Alan if they bypassed the solenoids and the pump with jumpers and left it running how was the fluid getting back to the pump with out reversing the direction every 30 seconds or so. If I had the cylinder pins pulled to do a initial bleed on the system I would have my remote control in my hand and connected to the three circuit plug where the drivers control connects into the system at the left rely bank, need to pick up power off the buss for to have 12 Volts. I then stroke the cylinders back and forth giving the pump a cool down rest every few minutes when it starts to feel a bit to warm, if the system is only being energized in one direction and then dead heading at 4 to 800 psi
the fluid will get hot fairly fast and can burnout the pump motor.

Gather that they did not unplug the pump of anything after the breaker started tripping to try and determine if the pump was tripping it. The pump is a positive displacement pump so it will stall and be toast in seconds.

[RAVEN]

If shop did as Jim M leads, I fully agree. Pump does not like dead head. Cylinders do not have a bypass system. Can stall the pump and cook the motor real quick!

[Jim Wulf]

If shop did as Jim M leads, I fully agree. Pump does not like dead head. Cylinders do not have a bypass system. Can stall the pump and cook the motor real quick!

I think we're all in agreement here. Wrong bleeding procedure = dead pump. Probably.

[Alan H. Tast]

Got a brief message from mechanic Sat afternoon after forwarding comment taken from here on Friday that with the pump disconnected the 60A breaker's still tripping. Hopefully Monday will bring better news. Don't know all the details of how he bled system as I wasn't there to observe, but I did give him instructions from tbird and Jim Brewer (whom the guy knows as he works on Lincoln convertibles) that all point out to only work the solenoids for pump for a short time, then rest/cool off. Hopefully I can get to him over the lunch hour to get more info.

[Jim Wulf]

Got a brief message from mechanic Sat afternoon after forwarding comment taken from here on Friday that with the pump disconnected the 60A breaker's still tripping. Hopefully Monday will bring better news. Don't know all the details of how he bled system as I wasn't there to observe, but I did give him instructions from tbird and Jim Brewer (whom the guy knows as he works on Lincoln convertibles) that all point out to only work the solenoids for pump for a short time, then rest/cool off. Hopefully I can get to him over the lunch hour to get more info.

Ruling the pump out, it could be something as simple as a failing breaker. I've never had one of these fail personally, but know that they do. I would jump the breaker momentarily and see if the top starts to work. Original style breakers by Klixon are still available even though the usual Bird vendors don't have them. I just bought a couple here:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Klixon-Texas-I ... 2#viTabs_0

[Alan H. Tast]

Jim: Thanks for the lead. Hopefully it's not bad but will suggest jumping it if he hasn't already. All the overtime I'm putting in is keeping me from being more hands-on (I hate being on salary right now).

[Alan H. Tast]

Update - Mechanic just spoke with me. Apparently they crossed a wire at the pump when reassembling (miscommunication as to what was a ground wire apparently), now saying won't get past deck lid erect in order to pull the flipper panel back in. Limit switch adjustment time. Will visit them tomorrow after lunch to survey progress and prep for the bill... (Edit: what they did was took the main power feed wire from the 60A breaker (which is a black wire), mistook it to be a ground wire and, instead of connecting it to the left relay bank bus bar, they screwed it to the body. Instant short-circuit. I've attached copies of the schematics from the circuit breaker to the relay bank to illustrate.)

[tbird]

Alan

Unless they cut off the original two circuit pump connection or some major rewiring went on it is hard to connect the pump wiring wrong. Still can not understand what the original theory was in jumping everything to get the air out of the system, you just need to run the system through its cycles a few times and it is bled. At most pull the cylinder top pins so the trunk and top do not need to move. Can not see why they pulled the pins on the 4 cylinders and removed them as you stated, need them in place to route the hose in a orderly manner.

[Alan H. Tast]

Alan

Unless they cut off the original two circuit pump connection or some major rewiring went on it is hard to connect the pump wiring wrong. Still can not understand what the original theory was in jumping everything to get the air out of the system, you just need to run the system through its cycles a few times and it is bled. At most pull the cylinder top pins so the trunk and top do not need to move. Can not see why they pulled the pins on the 4 cylinders and removed them as you stated, need them in place to route the hose in a orderly manner.

He thought he could pull the cylinders and hoses as a unit and replace as a unit, and maybe bench-bleed them before putting power to them? I'm not sure - I've been buried in the office for the past month solid without any time off and another couple of months to go before I can see daylight at the end of the tunnel, hence hiring out someone to do the work. I'm hoping to get up there after lunch tomorrow to talk through what they've been doing, and I have some text messages to check yet, too.