Having spent half the night trying to design a pump that would work with those ports open and, despite lubricating the brain with the Red Medicine, failing miserably I am relieved to see dem plug tings.
Thanks Lanny, much appreciated. Any time you want to upset two old lags you now know how !!
I'd guess there's no need to disconnect the solenoid. I know Gus has said that on more modern cars it doesn't have a sensible connector and can easily be wrecked.
Still, who'd expect a sensible connector on a piece of pooh that I wouldn't rely on to retract a ball point pen.

 

For manual latch operation, we will abandon the hose circuit connecting pump to latch, and replace it with caps or a short shunt hose + orifice at the pump end.

But ... I made a mistake in sizing the hydraulic caps and/or adapters needed to do this. Ordered the wrong stuff.

The fitting in question is the one on the pump end of the latch hoses. Just to be doubly sure of which fitting ... we're leaving in place the elbow fittings protruding from the pump body; the fitting in play is the one where the hose connects to that elbow, not the end of the elbow that goes into the pump body.

From some micrometer measurements, I now believe this thread to be metric, 12 mm diameter x 1.5 mm thread spacing (a standard size).

If anyone can confirm this, or tell me if they know it's wrong, that would be much appreciated.

 

Go to your local hydraulic hose fabricator and ask him for 2 of these Parker #4 CTX-S = #4 Male JIC to 1/8 Male and get a cap for the both of them. Replace the two fittings on the pump with the ones you just got.

 

I don't want to replace the elbows, preferring to disturb as little as possible. If the thread in question really is metric 12 x 1.5 (or whatever it is) I just need to identify it with certainty, and then buy components for that standard. Seems they're available for just about any standard.

 

The fittings are metric and I am unable to help. Sorry!

 

Actually that does help. If we know the fittings are metric, then I am almost certain that they are the 12 mm x 1.5 mm standard. Maybe somebody can say for sure.

 

12 x 1.5 is a standard coarse M12 thread, you can get a nut from Home Depot and try it on.

 

The wrong size fittings are my fault - the pump is a right dog's breakfast of fitting sizes - I looked at my list for a DIY pressure valve and got convinced the elbows were 1/8 BSP.
Sorry about that, Dennis.
The return port is 7/16 UNF (11.1 mm)
Norri's nut suggestion is the safest.

 

I wish I could jump in at this point and help. But it seems that whoever plugged the ports in my pump did it with some kind of an inner plug. In fact, I was not sure they were plugged at all. But it makes sense, I guess, that they would need to be. The elbows are removed and whatever is in there is in deep.
I will be watching to see how you handle the "top not closed" issue. For the moment I am just pushing the clear button to remove it every time I start my car.

 

Norri: Thanks, I'll try to get a nut today to test.

Steve: No worries. If it really is M12x1.5, that seems to have been a closely guarded secret.

Lanny: I don't anticipate a "top not closed" problem, having done some simulations ... by opening the petcock on the pump and closing the latch manually at the end of a raise/lower top operation. (Well that's great; I just tempted fate.)
Seems to me that the hack done to your car by the prior owner is somehow the cause of that in your car.

 

Nobody said this would be easy.

Both Home Depot and Lowe's stock metric nuts and bolts. In 12 mm diameter, you can have the fine thread = 1.25 mm spacing, or the coarse thread = 1.75 mm spacing. You wanted 1.5 mm thread? Not gonna happen.

Anyway I brought home a 12 x 1.75 nut and laid it up against the thread we're trying to identify. The 12 mm diameter is right, and given all the other evidence, I'm 99% sure the mystery thread ... the fitting on the pump end of stock convertible top hoses ... is in fact metric 12 x 1.5.

So I'm ordering up components in that size and hopefully will be able to report some actual test results in a week or two.

Hey, at least this passes some time while we're waiting for the weather to improve.

 

Apologies Dennis, that's what I get for talking off the top of my head at 2 in the morning.

1.75 is the standard coarse pitch.

Did you know if you subtract the pitch from the (metric) bolt dia you get the tapping size?

 

Metric system, cheese AND RM - who says the French haven't given us anything?
And you get places so much faster in kilometers than you do in miles. Saves petrol.

Do you know - I think a Jaguar wheel nut is M12 x 1.5 ??

 

Not a problem. I always need something there amyway.

I did not know about the tap size thing. Here in the Colonies, we are kept ignorant of all things metric. I think it's a government program. In fact we better be careful; you never know who's listening ...

 

Tell me about it! I think they have been trying to de-metricise me since I've been here but I'm resisting.

 

Fittings. I hate fittings.

You got your JIC and your NPT and your British standards and your Japanese standards and your metric standards and I'm sure I left some out.

Anyway, lately we're about getting components to fit on the threads that are exposed when we disconnect the latch hoses at the pump end. The size of these looked to me to be metric, M12x1.5, and indeed it is. But it seems there is more to know, that I do not.

The hose end, a female, has a swivel type of fitting. There is a tube inside of a nut that, when threaded on, pulls the tube in to seal against a mating surface in the male side of the connection.

I bought some M12x1.5 - to - JIC adapters, so as to be able to work in JIC where I already have components laying around. The adapter threads onto the male side OK -- just as the hose did -- but it appears we're out of threads and the tube inside the adapter has not been pulled in snug to seal against the male side of the connector. It's just sort of flopping around.

Is there more to this standard than I'm seeing? Some sort of seal supposed to be in there? (The hose does not seem to have one.)

Help, please. What am I missing?

 

Is your adapter a M-M (ie <->) ? If so the female fitting should pull onto it.

 

I can post a picture if it would be helpful, but on the metric side it is female, just like the hose end it replaces. On the JIC side it is male.

(There is probably a bunch of jokes that could be developed from this, but my head is not up to it.)

 

Well that should work.
Can you post a pic (we promise not to ban you for porno)?

 

Just replace the fittings and be done with it! You can hang the old fittings at the pump if you need to reinstall them to restore the system.