What in the world is this fluid from?
 

So today I was taking a break from my electrical gremlin and I decided to put on new window cranks. I was in the back seat on the passenger side and down the side of the seat was some fluid. At first I thought it was water, but I put my finger in it and it seemed much more oily. I took the rear seat out and this is what I saw.

http://i61.tinypic.com/j8cn50.jpg

It doesn't smell bad like gas or anything, but closer to oil or brake fluid. I don't know how anything could get down there. I would like to blame it on someone being reckless, but I am the only guy that has touched this car since it came back from the paint job, and I know it wasn't me spilling anything back there. Is there anything close to this area that could have sprung a leak or just some random fluke?

Convertible top cylinders. Best get both resealed..if they're leaking. Maybe you will get lucky and it's just the hard plastic feed hose.

I will have to take a look..thanks for the info

Darth, you need to buy new replacement cylinders. If I were you I would
replace the hoses from the pump to the cylinders while you are in there, they get very
brittle when they are old and can snap in two with no warning. The pump uses automatic transmission fluid. You will need to refill the pump after installing the new parts. To do this,
take an oil squirt gun and fill it with trans fluid and stick a rubber vacuum hose on the end
of the nozzle on the gun and stick the other end of the hose in to the fill hole at the top of the
pump after removing the rubber stopper from the hole. You will need to squirt in fluid and
cycle the top up and down with the power top switch and keep filling till it's working good, then cycle it up and down with the stopper out of the hole to make sure you didn't overfill
it. If you did the oil will come out of the hole when you cycle it up and down. When you get
done reinstall the rubber stopper in the fill hole on the pump. You will notice that you see air bubbles in the plastic lines. That is normal, don't worry about them.

Another project...I'd like to say I am surprised, but I am not. :)

I am not going to lie, but I don't think I like the look of $300 for new cylinders at the moment. Can I replace the hoses first and see if that is the issue? Are these special made hoses for this convertible top, or are there hoses that can be bought at the local auto store?

I had the same problem last year on my '69 LeMans, and replaced both cylinders and hoses. The hoses are very high pressure hoses, and would need to specifically buy convertible top hoses. It's likely that your cylinders are leaking, not the hoses. If your hoses leaked, it was spray fluid at high pressure, and your top would not move (I found this out the hard way when I snapped a brittle line, and sprayed fluid like a fire hose everywhere). I saw some cylinders on eBay for about $100 each, so if you look around, you could probably find them cheaper than the $300/pr.

Does this mean my convertible top is down indefinitely? Or can I manually close it and open it without causing further damage until I get this replaced?

The top was up during the winter and a week or so ago I was doing work on the inside so I put down the top so I could get better light. It 90% closed then stopped. I was going to look at it once I was done some other stuff, but that fluid beside the seat caught my attention

Darth, if you remove the cylinders you can manually raise and lower the top
but it will take two people to do it, one on each side of the car. It's amazing that your top cylinders are just now failing.....mine went out 25 years ago.
Or perhaps they've been changed once already.

For me it was new cylinders, hoses and pump. None of it was any good.

We raised and lowered the top manually for 10 years before I got around to fixing it. Wife on one side and me on the other.

I doubt they have been changed ever....remember my car had factory front suspension until this year. I doubt they replaced anything

Yep...that is what is going to happen. Once I finish my current task (I honestly don't think I will), then I will look into what the issue is here. If it is anything significant then manually it is. My wife may not appreciate it, but my wallet will.

This reminds me of when I bought my 2005 Caravan, the back hatch is suppose to open electronically, but it didn't. I concocted a metal wire attached to a ring that you have to manually pull to get it to open. Price=$3, but the wife has never been happy about my ghetto fix. :)

On this note, now that I am free from burden of my to do list, I should get this stuff undone and see where the issue for sure it. The roof is currently down and I can visually see diddly-squat. How do I go about freeing the cylinders so I can manually get the roof up and down? I looked into the 69 repair manual but it has little to no write-ups on the convertible specifically and just states for me to look into the Fisher body repair manual for convertible info.

You'll need to remove the rear door panels to get at the cylinders. The cylinders are actually not that complicated to remove and install. I also found very little info on how to replace the lines. My best advice is to play close attention to which hoses are routed to the top and bottom of each cylinder (coming from the pump), and replicate it with the new hoses (don't mix them up). Also, it's much easier to attach the hoses to the cylinders BEFORE you bolt them in.

Darth, the cylinders are behind the rear armrest panels....rear quarter
interior panels don't need removing, just the armrest panels.

I don't think you can remove the armrest panel alone as the side panel is fastened from the inside to it.

By arm rest panel I mean the whole thing top to bottom, not just the lower part
you put your arm on.