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I believe it has to release the pressure. If the tube were closed on the end it would be no different than just putting a solid cap on the tank without a diaphragm with a hole.
I don't know.... does it really need to be vented or does it just need to allow for expansion. If just for expansion, having a hose that has some give to expand under pressure could do that.
Checked mine yesterday and found fluid around reservoir and in shock tower depressions. Not leaking enough to drip on floor. Cap had the infamous small slit. The rubber diaphragm in the cap was fully sucked into the reservoir, like it sucks a lot of fluid out of the reservoir when the lift is activated. But, maybe slowly returns fluid to reservoir upon lowering. Reservoir appears full, or maybe overfull.
Checked brake cap and I think it has a small slit also. Do we really think both caps should just have small hole in middle of dimple? Just curious what is stock from GM.
Picked up my car Sept. 9, drove back from Museum, have about 2900 miles on car.
Strange and stranger.
PS: wonder if anyone has observed reservoir while activating lift to see what happens, with cap on, or cap off?
Ralph
I believe it has to release the pressure. If the tube were closed on the end it would be no different than just putting a solid cap on the tank without a diaphragm with a hole.
I was wondering how Mad Matt handled that with his gizmo. I didn't see any vent hole. Maybe there was enough air space between his aluminum cap and the brass catch can to 'absorb' any pressure build up.
Last edited by Broken Halo; 01-17-2021 at 02:03 PM.
I was wondering how Mad Matt handled that with his gizmo. I didn't see any vent hole. Maybe there was enough air space between his aluminum cap and the brass catch can to 'absorb' any pressure build up.
He posted a picture of the vent hole in the "catch can".
As for my car, after I cleaned up the little fluid that was sitting on the reservoir ledge and in the cap, I have driven it several times using the lift many times and have rechecked it now 3 times including just now. No signs of fluid outside. My level is at the reservoir seam edge and has not changed. So I am not worried about it, I will check again in a month or two. If I had fluid leaking and my level was close to the max line I would remove a bit to see if that helps. My system works fine where my level is.
As for my car, after I cleaned up the little fluid that was sitting on the reservoir ledge and in the cap, I have driven it several times using the lift many times and have rechecked it now 3 times including just now. No signs of fluid outside. My level is at the reservoir seam edge and has not changed. So I am not worried about it, I will check again in a month or two. If I had fluid leaking and my level was close to the max line I would remove a bit to see if that helps. My system works fine where my level is.
Does your diaphram still have a hole or has it turned into a slit?
That's the shape my gasket has also and I'm not leaking or any seepage since delivery (+/-80 miles now). Definitely more of a "X" shape than slit after closer inspection.
This afternoon I opened the front inside cover and checked the lift system cap and leak, and what I found was kind of interesting, so here let me share with you all...
1. First of all, since a few of us have been talking about opening the front inside cover and getting access to the lift system reservoir, just as a reference for folks who have not opened the front side cover yet and wondering how to do it, here are the details: the first step is to pull the side covers on both sides, and each has 3 clips - as you can see from below which is on the passenger side, after you pulling it out, the locations of these 3 clips I marked in red, so just pull at these locations towards the center of the car, with a little bit of force to dislodge the clips, and the side cover can be removed:
2. And then you just pull up the center piece to remove the main front cover. Below is after the driver side covers being pulled off, and you can see the 3 holes on the body fender (in red) where the 3 clip on the side piece is inserted to secure the cover. The center piece clips are marked green, and there are 3 on each side (in the photo is the driver side), and you just pull it upwards to get it off. That large yellow clip requires the most force to pull it off:
3. After pulling off the center cover piece, sure enough, I can see that my car has the leak too! As Matt pointed out earlier, every car that has the front lift is going to have this leak, just a matter of time. My leak fortunately isn't too bad, just a few drops below the reservoir cap, and a few drops below the reservoir onto the car frame, where I marked them with red.
So on my car there's no big pool of leak yet, I guess maybe due to I haven't driven the car that much - I have driven less than a dozen times, with only 150 miles on the car, and each time I go out, the lift will be used about 4 times one way, so 8 times round trip. So I'd say that the total times the lift has been used is less than 100 times. I am glad this issue has been discovered by others and have been discussed here, otherwise I'd never discovered the leak, until the leak is getting everywhere and dropped to the garage floor.
4. I opened the lifting fluid reservoir cap, and without touching anything on it or wiped it clean, here's the first photo:
What's interesting, is that there's no hole or slit visible on the diaphragm, other than a small uneven bump at the center, as if the rubber is totally sealed. And it's visible that the fluid has been splashed onto its surface:
5. I took the diaphragm rubber out, and pushed it from the other side with my index finger, now I can see there's a slit. It's not a + shaped slit like on others, but just a single line of slit.
6. And here's how it looks like from the other side - as you can see, just a barely visible single line of a tiny slit, but no pinhole:
Given that there's no pinhole on my lift cap, as Matt said that it should start with a pinhole as the new diaphragm should have, which his replacement cap had, this makes me wonder that maybe there's no pinhole to start with, or some diaphragms just have a tiny slit like mine, and the pressure inside the reservoir pushed the rubber that formed a larger opening slit, and some even have a + shaped slit. I am not sure about this though, as I need to also get a replacement cap from GM and see what's coming from GM as the new diaphragm.
The point is, I was expecting to see at least a visible pinhole, and I was thinking about to punch a rivet there that has the same size hole as the "original pinhole" on the diaphragm, as a way to "harden" the center area where it gets pushed by the pressure, to prevent the rubber being slit open wider and causing more leak. But now looking at my relative new diaphragm and there's no visible hole there, I am hesitate to punch a rivet there with a hold, as the a hole on the rivet may be too big and could causing more leak problems.
7. Anyway, I also took of the brake system cap, just to make a comparison. Below as you can see, that the brake fluid cap diaphragm (marked red), actually has a more visible slit:
8. Here's another comparison photo, where I took the diaphragms out from the caps, to compare how they look like from the other side (facing the cap). The red marked ones are from the lifting system, and green marked ones are from the brake fluid system. As you can see, the diaphragms of these two are slightly different. The less opening gap on the brake diaphragm makes it feel a bit stiffer, but buy touching them, I think they are made with the same materials and similar in thickness, so the brake diaphragm isn't that much stiffer at the enter where the slit is, it's just feels stiffer at the edge where there are those groves:
9. Here is the view of the lifting system fluid reservoir, when the cap was just taken off. As you can see, it's nearly full or very full.
10. So just to see how the fluid level changes after the lift is activated, I did the following test: I closed the frunk cover, started the car, and manually activated the lift, and while the lift was up, I shut off the engine, and then opened the frunk cover, and went to the front to see what happened. As you might have guessed, the fluid level went down, nearly emptied the whole reservoir, so I'd say, quite significantly. So I'd say that when the left is lowed and when the fluid fills nearly the whole reservoir, it's very likely to be pushed out through the diaphragm.
I think GM's design (or whoever the supplier designed this system) is slightly flawed, as they should have made the reservoir little bit bigger, to have more room for the fluid to gash back when the lift is lowed, not filling it so full, as the photo 9 above shows.
11. I also opened the cap and just to take a look, and here's how the diaphragm looked like, as if it's was squeezed or pushed very hard by the pressure and fluid when the lift was lowed. No wonder the fluid was pushed out.
12. So to prevent the further leak again, I did the similar temporary "fix" as others have done: I took a small plastic cup, cut it in half, and cut a hole in the bottom, and then wrapped the reservoir neck with absorbent heavy paper tower, and this should prevent any leak from being splashed all over the place:
So, while living with this temporary "fix", and waiting for GM to come up a real solution, or if that never comes, making the Matt Gizmo as the permanent fix, I wonder if pinch on a small rivet would still be a valid solution, given that it seems there's a no premade pinhole there.
This afternoon I opened the front inside cover and checked the lift system cap and leak, and what I found was kind of interesting, so here let me share with you all...
1. First of all, since a few of us have been talking about opening the front inside cover and getting access to the lift system reservoir, just as a reference for folks who have not opened the front side cover yet and wondering how to do it, here are the details: the first step is to pull the side covers on both sides, and each has 3 clips - as you can see from below which is on the passenger side, after you pulling it out, the locations of these 3 clips I marked in red, so just pull at these locations towards the center of the car, with a little bit of force to dislodge the clips, and the side cover can be removed:
2. And then you just pull up the center piece to remove the main front cover. Below is after the driver side covers being pulled off, and you can see the 3 holes on the body fender (in red) where the 3 clip on the side piece is inserted to secure the cover. The center piece clips are marked green, and there are 3 on each side (in the photo is the driver side), and you just pull it upwards to get it off. That large yellow clip requires the most force to pull it off:
3. After pulling off the center cover piece, sure enough, I can see that my car has the leak too! As Matt pointed out earlier, every car that has the front lift is going to have this leak, just a matter of time. My leak fortunately isn't too bad, just a few drops below the reservoir cap, and a few drops below the reservoir onto the car frame, where I marked them with red.
So on my car there's no big pool of leak yet, I guess maybe due to I haven't driven the car that much - I have driven less than a dozen times, with only 150 miles on the car, and each time I go out, the lift will be used about 4 times one way, so 8 times round trip. So I'd say that the total times the lift has been used is less than 100 times. I am glad this issue has been discovered by others and have been discussed here, otherwise I'd never discovered the leak, until the leak is getting everywhere and dropped to the garage floor.
4. I opened the lifting fluid reservoir cap, and without touching anything on it or wiped it clean, here's the first photo:
What's interesting, is that there's no hole or slit visible on the diaphragm, other than a small uneven bump at the center, as if the rubber is totally sealed. And it's visible that the fluid has been splashed onto its surface:
5. I took the diaphragm rubber out, and pushed it from the other side with my index finger, now I can see there's a slit. It's not a + shaped slit like on others, but just a single line of slit.
6. And here's how it looks like from the other side - as you can see, just a barely visible single line of slit, but no pinhole:
Given that there's no pinhole on my lift cap, as Matt said that it should start with a pinhole as the new diaphragm should have, which his replacement cap had, this makes me wonder, maybe there's no pinhole to start with, and the pressure inside the reservoir pushed the rubber that formed an opening slit, and some has a + shaped slit, and some has just a single line of slit, like mine. Or, the factory new ones just had one single slit like mine, and maybe after some use, it becomes a + shaped slit. I am not sure about this though, as I need to also get a replacement cap and see what's coming from GM as the new diaphragm.
The point is, I was expecting to see at least a visible pinhole, and I was thinking about to punch a rivet there with a hole that has the same size as the pinhole, as a way to "harden" the center area where it gets pushed by the pressure, to prevent the rubber being slit open wider and causing more leak. But now looking at my relative new diaphragm and there's no visible hole there, I am hesitate to punch a rivet there, as the a hole on the rivet may be too big and could causing more problems.
7. Anyway, I also took of the brake system cap, just to make a comparison. Below you can see, that the brake fluid cap diaphragm (marked red), actually has a more visible slit:
8. Here's another comparison, where I tool the diaphragms out from the caps, to compare how they look like from the other side. The red marked ones are from the lifting system, and green marked ones are from the brake fluid system. As you can see, the diaphragms of these two are slightly different. The less opening gap on the brake diaphragm makes it feel a bit stiffer, but buy touching them, I think they are the same materials and similar in thickness, so the brake diaphragm isn't that much stiffer at the enter where the slit is.
9. Here is the view of the lifting system fluid reservoir, when the cap was just taken off. As you can see, it's nearly full or very full.
10. So just to see how the fluid level changes after the lift is activated, I did the following test: I closed the frunk cover, started the car, and manually activated the lift, and while the lift was up, I shut off the engine, and then opened the frunk cover, and went to the front to see what happened. As you might have guessed, the fluid level went down, nearly emptied the whole reservoir, so I'd say, quite significantly. So I'd say that when the left is lowed and when the fluid fills nearly the whole reservoir, it's very likely to be pushed out through the diaphragm.
I think GM's design (or whoever the supplier designed this system) is slightly flawed, as they should have made the reservoir little bit bigger, to have more room for the fluid to gash back when the lift is lowed, not filling it so full, as the photo 9 above shows.
11. I also opened the cap and just to take a look, and here's how the diaphragm looked like, as if it's was squeezed or pushed very hard by the pressure and fluid when the lift was lowed. No wonder the fluid was pushed out.
12. So to prevent the further leak again, I did the similar temporary "fix" as others have done: I took a small plastic cup, cut it in half, and cut a hole in the bottom, and then wrapped the reservoir neck with absorbent heavy paper tower, and this should prevent any leak from being splashed all over the place:
So, while living with this temporary "fix", and waiting for GM to come up a real solution, or if that never comes, making the Matt Gizmo as the permanent fix, I wonder if pinch on a small rivet would still be a valid solution, given that it seems there's a no premade pinhole there.
Would love to hear more comments and suggestions!
Thanks!
Thanks for the update. I've checked and found no sign of leaks, but have only used the lift a few times in 420 miles of driving. My fluid level is nearly at the bottom of the reservoir in the lowered position. I see the fluid just above the plastic ribs in the bottom of the reservoir. I didn't see a fill-to line. Is this normal? Do some possibly have too much fluid in the reservoir? Do I have too little? My 2020 VIN # is 19,1XX.
.... So, while living with this temporary "fix", and waiting for GM to come up a real solution....
Would love to hear more comments and suggestions!
Thanks!
Good detective work. Thanks.
As you, I'm absorbing whatever fluid "leaks" and waiting for GM to define a viable fix. It might relate to the reservoir and cap or may be in another part of the hydraulic system.
Thanks for the update. I've checked and found no sign of leaks, but have only used the lift a few times in 420 miles of driving. My fluid level is nearly at the bottom of the reservoir in the lowered position. I see the fluid just above the plastic ribs in the bottom of the reservoir. I didn't see a fill-to line. Is this normal? Do some possibly have too much fluid in the reservoir? Do I have too little? My 2020 VIN # is 19,1XX.
And for further clarification, my lift is working fine with no warning messages concerning low fluid.
Wow Bluan, your reservoir looks overfilled compared to mine. Mine only looks like that when my car is parked on an incline. The fluid level on mine is just above the divider bar at the bootm of the tank and my lift functions fine. Seeing these various pics of fluid levels has me wondering what the hell is going on. I don't think a rivet in the slit would prevent the leaking we're seeing. Any hole in the diaphram is going to expel fluid and end up above the diaphram where it eventually follows the groove/channel in the cap and makes it's way out. Even after I had my cap replaced, I noticed a bit of fluid sweating but wrote it off thinking it was possibly some residue. Looking back, I'm not sure the new cap really addressed the issue. Both my original cap and the replacement cap have diaphrams were the slits/holes have elongated which indicates, to me, that they are slowly tearing as the pressure passes through it. I have been road testing and verifying the results and dependability of my "Gizmo" and so far things have remained bone dry. I have a meeting with some machining folks this next week. I'm working on a refined device that's a huge improvement upon my original design. Stay tuned!
This is a question for Matt, could you have the clear line on Gizmo go into a straight fitting instead of a 90 degree into the brass catch can and then mount the can parallel to the ground only slightly higher than the cap? That way there is room for the fluid to move and it will also drain back into the reservoir without having to constantly empty the catch can. Just a thought.
Thanks for the update. I've checked and found no sign of leaks, but have only used the lift a few times in 420 miles of driving. My fluid level is nearly at the bottom of the reservoir in the lowered position. I see the fluid just above the plastic ribs in the bottom of the reservoir. I didn't see a fill-to line. Is this normal? Do some possibly have too much fluid in the reservoir? Do I have too little? My 2020 VIN # is 19,1XX.
I doubt you are having too little, and my guess is that I am having too much. But I don't know for sure, since it's entirely possible that the factory didn't put in the right amount for one of us, or both of us. Right now I have no confidence at what the BG factory QC process to ensure what's being added the factory is correct. Heck, I just discovered today that my brake fluid reservoir is empty (posted another thread about that) while I was doing this lifting fluid leak check. Let's hope more people here will chime in to say what level they have on their cars, and if enough people share the data, maybe we can extrapolate what the correct level in the lift system fluid reservoir should be.
Originally Posted by MAD Matt
Wow Bluan, your reservoir looks overfilled compared to mine. Mine only looks like that when my car is parked on an incline. The fluid level on mine is just above the divider bar at the bootm of the tank and my lift functions fine. Seeing these various pics of fluid levels has me wondering what the hell is going on. I don't think a rivet in the slit would prevent the leaking we're seeing. Any hole in the diaphram is going to expel fluid and end up above the diaphram where it eventually follows the groove/channel in the cap and makes it's way out. Even after I had my cap replaced, I noticed a bit of fluid sweating but wrote it off thinking it was possibly some residue. Looking back, I'm not sure the new cap really addressed the issue. Both my original cap and the replacement cap have diaphrams were the slits/holes have elongated which indicates, to me, that they are slowly tearing as the pressure passes through it. I have been road testing and verifying the results and dependability of my "Gizmo" and so far things have remained bone dry. I have a meeting with some machining folks this next week. I'm working on a refined device that's a huge improvement upon my original design. Stay tuned!
OK, when I was doing the check, my car was parked at a very mild slop, maybe 5-10 degree slop, so I don't think my filling level is due to the incline slop. Most likely mine was filled too much at the factory, judging by your level and the level on NextOne's car (see above). So I think I am going to use a suction tube to suck out some of the fluid, to get it a bit lower, maybe half full in the reservoir, unless more people here will say that theirs are all filled like mine.
I agree with you that any hole on the diaphragm will likely expel the fluid towards outside. However, isn't that grove/channel on the cap was supposed to redirect the expelled fluid back to the gap or space in the diaphragm and drop it back into the reservoir? Or do you think the grove is only for venting the air when the pressure is built up and such in air when the fluid level drops? My guess is that the grove/channel isn't for venting and sucking air, but only for directing the expelled fluid back to the reservoir, because, the system design should not let air in, otherwise the fluid will suck in air with moisture and lose its effectiveness very quickly, unless the groove is a one-way channel and the diaphragm robber will block the air intake. Maybe that is the design.
In any case, our biggest problem and challenge here is, over time as the lifting system being used more and more, the pressure will keep pushing the rubber and expanding the slit, causing it more prone or easier to leak. A prefect solution would be to somehow harden that center area on the diaphragm to prevent it from being torn apart more but stay with a tiny slit, so the fluid only goes slowly through the groove, and not with high speed to splash out. Punch on a rivet might be a solution, if we can make find a rivet with a hole as small as a slit. Don't know if such thing exist. Maybe use metal sheet to cut a slit and then somehow punch onto the rubber...
01-17-2021, 11:20 AM
I was wondering how Mad Matt handled that with his gizmo. I didn't see any vent hole. Maybe there was enough air space between his aluminum cap and the brass catch can to 'absorb' any pressure build up.
