Convertible Top Hydraulic Cylinder Mustang Convertible 1999-2004

There are several expenses unique to to Mustang Convertibles that potential owners want to consider before buying one. One of the bigger ones is replacing the convertible top, but there's also hydraulics and electrical parts that are unique to the Mustang Convertible that sometimes need replacement.

On our 2001 convertible here, we've already replaced the top last year. Lately, we've been having some issues with the top going up and down, which portrays us some bad convertible top cylinders. Today, we're going to show you how to replace them using our '01 GT Convertible. These convertible top cylinders will fit your 1999 through 2004 Mustang Convertible. These are part of the hydraulic system on your convertible top. Basically, the convertible top motor pushes fluid into the cylinders to raise the top, and pulls fluid to put the top back down. If these aren't working properly, many times the top goes up and down slowly or not at all. As long as your motor's working properly and your lines aren't leaking, many times this is the culprit.

The three main components are your electric top motor, your lines, and your cylinders. If you're replacing the cylinders, we do suggests replacing both at the same time. If you have one bad cylinder, the other one's good. The other one's probably working harder to put the top up and down, and it's also probably seen a lot of wear and tear. It's a good idea to replace both at the same time.

For this installation, there will be a 3/8" ratchet, 10 millimeter socket, 13 millimeter socket, T40 Torx bit, a short extension, T20 Torx bit, 11 millimeter wrench, small flat plate screwdriver, panel removal tool, and a plastic syringe.

Your convertible top motor is going to be behind the backseat in the trunk. The lines come over to the side, and the cylinder is going to be behind the quarter trim panels. To access them, we've got to remove these panels. To do that, we're going to start by removing the backseat. To remove the backseat there's going to be two clips. One on this side and one on that side. You're going to pull up on them to remove it. Hit the little push tabs, right out. With the seat bottom out of the way we can remove the seat back. It's just held on by to bolts. Then, we're going to grab the panel removal tool. Push pins here, here, and one here to help separate the weather strip and remove the door sill. The bottom part goes under the door sill plate, so lift that up out of the way.

We can see the cylinder back here. We're going to remove this speaker enclosure to give us some more room to work. Now we can see the entire cylinder. To remove the convertible top cylinder we have to remove this bolt here, which holds the bracket in place. What holds it to the bracket, we're going to have to remove the screw bolt all the way up top there, which is a Torx bolt. It holds the ram to the convertible top frame itself. To do this, you want to put the top up high enough that bolt's visible and you get a wrench on it. I'm doing one side at a time, the top should stay up with just the one cylinder since it is right in the middle. Just be careful. Make sure it doesn't fall on you. Then, move on to the lower retaining nut. Shimmy that bracket off. You may have to slightly pry on it. Now, I can pull the cylinder free.

You want to make sure you disconnect the lines. You're going to lose a little bit of fluid, so have something to hold on to it. You want to make note of which one goes where. Okay. Yellow line is the top. The one with the pink is the bottom. I'm going to put a little sealant on the thread before we reinstall. Tape will work. I'm going to put the supplied O-rings onto our new cylinder, and then thread these on. You want to be careful not to over-tighten these. Basically, we just want to get them snug. Usually one full turn past hand tight is going to be tight enough. Now you can put the cylinder back up into place. Okay. Let's put the top halfway up again to reinstall the upper bolt. You may have to use the top motor to extend this cylinder, but you want to get it lined up as close as you can here. Then, use this to kind of get it in position. Reinstall the hardware.

I'm going to leave all the panels off. Repeat the process on the other side. What you want to do now is fill the system and bleed it. The top's going to have to go up and down several times to do this, because it's going to be low on fluids you may want someone to help you actually lift the top up. First, we want to do though is pull the rubber plug off the side here. We're going to move these harnesses out of the way, first. Then, we're going to start filling the system. You need some sort of a large syringe, like this, or a turkey baster, anything we can get fluid into that small hole. You want to use an ATF dextron II, dextron III, something like that. Not an old school type F. At this point our convertible top is down, which means the cylinders are going to be closed. We're going to top it off, and then we'll put the top up and put more fluid in. We put the cap all the way in, now we can put the top up.

The cylinder is now full extended with the top up. We're going to top off the motor again. We're going to put the top back down. With the top back down now, again, the cylinder is all the way closed. We'll top off the motor again. I see it dripping down, and it's full. We'll check the system one more time, and then we can reinstall the panels. We'll check to make sure everything is working properly. Okay. Everything looks good, we can reinstall our panels. Your installation is finished.

The convertible top cylinder got the convertible top on our 2001 GT Convertible working properly again. The motor is a little bit noisy, probably because it was low on fluid for so long. We're going to save that project for another day as it works fine as it is for now. As far as labor, figure about two to three hours for both cylinders. You'll be back on the road in no time.