I thought you guys might enjoy the destruction.

I purchased the car a couple of months ago and knew the wing was not fuctional when I bought the car. So, I'm just guessing how this all took place.

When I puchased the car, it was my intent to install a GT2 deck lid so I didn't really care about having a fuctional wing. Well, I decided to do a Tech Art Type one replica instead of the GT2 deck lid. Even though I don't really like the look of the car with the wing up, I thought it would be nice to get the wing working if I wasn't going to change the deck lid.

After mixing up some Petosin and some Lucas power steering stop leak, it was time to blead the system. After the bleed it was very apparent the wing was not going to move. I then removed the pump and tested it. The motor was turning, but no fluid was being pumped. At this point, I disassembled the pump.

It appears that the seal started leaking on one of the rams, putting the wing is a bind. Since the limit swich was not triggered, the electric motor continued to run trying to force the pistons in the pump up (which could not move do to the wing being in a bind. I believe this is where the failue occured. The guide block should be flat, but is cracked, pieces are broken out and the piece is significantly distorted. Normally this part is flat instead of the "V" shape you see in the photo.

The other failure (which is a mystery to me) is the "C" clips that retain the pump pistons in the bores have both been ripped from the bottom. The groove in the inner bore is completely gone.

I'm not that worried as I'm installing a bigger wing and will leave it in the down position. FYI you can remove the pump and the lines, clean out the rams with brake cleaner and compressed air and unplug the limit switch on the passenger side ram closest to the deck lid and you will have no error codes.

If you happen to have a pump, or even a broken pump with good cylinders and the guide, let me know. I'm not going to spend a lot of money on it as it's not important to me, but if it's cheap I might get it back up and running just to see if I can.

Here is the damage.



Later, Steve

 

I thought I would add a couple more pictures that show the damage.

In this picture you can see how distorted the white plastic piece is. The cylinders should be sitting parallel.



This shows all the cracks and broken pieces.

 

Mine failed the same way. This was the 2nd complete ram, hose, pump assembly and it failed before my car had 19K miles. I thought about machining one (plastic coupler bridge) out of aluminum, but thinking further, the next weakest part would fail and probably cause a bigger disaster.