• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Master Cylinder is toast

Share this page

Z

zimasprite

Jedi Hopeful
Offline
--sigh--

I think my master cylinder is toast. Not sure why, but doesn't build pressure. When I go to bleed brakes no fluid moves at all. As far as everyone knows, is the online Ebay place for $155-160 the best deal out there? If I could get just a cylinder bore, I have another reservoir w/ seals and all.

Thanks - Drew
 
If Peter C rebuilds them then that would probably be your best bet, second choice is whoever he recommends for a rebuild.
Bill
 
Would it be better to just buy a new one rather than getting an old one redone? What is the advantage in getting it redone? My guess is that by time I pay for shipping and someone else to do it, I could almost buy a new one. I'm a little skeptical, though, about buying from the ebay place for $150+ because there is no warranty.

Anyways...thanks for the info.

Drew
 
I just bought a Raybestos on Ebay for $166 shipped. Will post on it but probably wont have the brakes together for another week- my goal is to be bleeding everything by second weekend of June. Waiting on parts as I'm changing out a lot of brake components.
 
I was just looking at universal master cylinders. I wonder if I could use one of those remote mount reservoir ones. The bolt pattern looks to be vertical, but I could twist it to be closer to the bolt pattern on the pedal box. Don't hvae to worry if the reservoir is upright if mounted remotely. Have to do something about the dual line part though. Probably could T-it. Also, not sure if the stroke would match up. They have all different size bores, but the stroke is 1.1 inches. No idea if that would be a problem.

anyone ever do something like this? Just seems like this dual line units have problems quite often.

- Drew
 
I thought about doing that before choosing to rebuild my MC again. I see photos of cars with the Wilwood style MC's all the time. They are mostly racers, but I have seen a few photos of hot street cars with them as well. Summit sells them for about $65. Can't beat that price with a stick.
 
There is that speedwell setup with 3 MC's from Tilton(pretty much same as Wilwood). I have one last outlet to check to see if I can get a reasonably priced 2 line setup. Otherwise, I'm going to buy 2 3/4" Tilton/Wilwood MC's(one for each line) and custom make my own setup. I'd use the existing clutch MC. Don't think it would be that hard either.

I called Rockauto and put in an order today for a remfg cardone MC. They won't know until MOnday if they can get one. If not, they said I can sent my MC to them(cardone) to get remfg. Not too expensive at $33 + $10 core + shipping.

- Drew
 
I could probably use just one of those 3/4" MC's, but it would be a good idea, I think, to keep a dual line design for safety sake. I would mount two of those Wilwood type MC's to the original pedal box mounts and weld a gussetted tab to the side for the clutch MC. I have to look and see if there is room due to the wiper motor though. Think I would have to put a proportioning valve with two different brake MCs?
 
Adjustable proportioning valve like a race car????
 
I could see putting one in just to dial in the front vs. rear braking. The aftermarket stroke of the MCs are likely not the same, so could use the proportioning valve to tune it. I'm not saying I know this is right, just more or less saying ideas on possible ways to do a new type of MC setup using some newer type parts.

have a good one - Drew
 
I poured over the Wilwood catalog over this very same issue- attempt to save some money and perhaps find a cool looking alternative- or a better engineered one. Every combination of MC seemed like an engineering nightmare- and I'm starting to get a little tired of that. So I thought about what I really wanted and that was to get the brakes in working order. I also thought really hard about who was going to be driving this car.

My point is that as much fun as I have had with fabrication and modification, when it comes to brakes, that's one place I do not want to go. I decided that my car- and my life- was worth at least 166 dollars for a new master cylinder. The correct one.
 
gmichael52 said:
I poured over the Wilwood catalog over this very same issue- attempt to save some money and perhaps find a cool looking alternative- or a better engineered one. Every combination of MC seemed like an engineering nightmare- and I'm starting to get a little tired of that. So I thought about what I really wanted and that was to get the brakes in working order. I also thought really hard about who was going to be driving this car.

My point is that as much fun as I have had with fabrication and modification, when it comes to brakes, that's one place I do not want to go. I decided that my car- and my life- was worth at least 166 dollars for a new master cylinder. The correct one.
Click to expand...

Reading your post reminded me of an old racing truism that has to do with the perceived high price of safety helmets. That truism is, "If your head is worth $20, then buy a $20 helmet. If your head is worth more than that, then quit complaining!" /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/hammer.gif

Tim
 
taking that into consideration.....coming up with my own rig it is!!!!

Seriously, I'm going to take the advice of the wise and buy a new one. Anyone had any good luck with the place on Ebay? I'm a little worried about the no warranty thing. Any other recommendations where to buy for $200 or less...a warranty would be great!

Thanks for the wisdom - Drew
 
Glen,

Thanks for the info. I called and talked to them. I'm sending the MC out there tomorrow for sleeving and rebuild. They have a 10 year warranty on the sleeving. Can't beat that!!

- Drew
 
Back
Top