MG Midget Brake System Diagnosis Question

[urchin]

Hi from a Triumph TR-7/Land Rover Series II-A owner,

I'm a refugee from my MGB [2] and MG Midget days [1, but for 7 years and 80,000 miles]but a buddy is working on an early 70's Midget and has a question.

He spent an hour trying to get a good pedal on this Midget. Of course, while checking the wheel cylinders and bleeding them a brake line snapped - the one that runs along the transmission tunnel.

So he replaced the line [he's good at this stuff] and then continued his bleedling. Still, he has a soft pedal, and it goes to the floor.

I'm suspecting a bad master cylinder. He's wondering about what appear to be two bleed nipples per caliper. Is there a proper sequence for the Midget? From my ownership days in the '80's of my very used Midget, I don't remember bleeding brakes to be a problem unless there was a defective part.

What's your advice, please?

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Nunyas]

In case you haven't already, you might want to post this in the Spridget forums too. You *might* get a quicker response there. As far as the soft brakes go, it definitely sounds like something's amiss. I've never worked on a Midget before, so I can't speak for the twin bleed nipples, but it does sound rather odd to me. As far as bleeding goes, standard procedure of bleeding the furthest wheel cylinder first and nearest cylinder last works well. If no amount of bleeding can be done to reduce the softness of the pedal, then I'd think that there's a problem with one or more of the cylinders, including the master. I'd check for leaks around the wheel cylinders then around the master.

HTH