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Rear brake cylinder question

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sparkydave

sparkydave

Jedi Knight
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I was attacking my leaky rear brake cylinders this weekend, and found the old ones were a little too pitted to be worth rebuilding. Good news is new ones from Moss weren't expensive, but the circlips that hold them are backordered. I figured since I had to fight with the old rusty ones I would just get new ones.

Here's the lowdown: The old ones had the holes oriented straight up on the backplate, so the snap ring pliers were interfering with the bleeders and the brake pipes. I took the pipes and bleeders off to get a better grip on them, but is there a specific reason to have them oriented that way? Maybe it's a silly question since you would most likely be removing the circlips to remove the whole brake cylinder and hence the pipes, but any problems with orienting them a little differently?
 
the last couple wheel cyl. I did I replaced those PIA circlips with snap rings that fit the back of the wheel cyl. hope this helps
 
I replaced both rear wheel cyl on my 68 and they came with the clips that hold the wheel cyl on. Pain in the you-know-what to install. I'll tell you what though, speed-bleeders rock!!! They save me a ton of time.

- Drew -
 
Yep, those clips were a big pain in the rear, since 30 years of rust had them pretty well stuck. Would the orientation make a big difference though? I would guess as long as the holes for the snap rings aren't pointing straight down (where water would form drops) then off to the side should work. Just seems kind of strange to have them where it's hard to get the pliers in there.
 
As long as they're ON properly (ie: grip the cylinder)it don't matter. Make it easier for yourself on the NEXT go at 'em and align 'em wherever it's simpler to get to.
 
Be creative and use a spiral retaining ring or better yet remove the roll pin from the wheel cyl and tap the hole 10-32 and follow with a bottoming tap ground/shortened for full hole depth tapping and use a 10-32 Allen skru and a drop of blue Loctite.
 
I swore quite a bit over that job (changing the wheel cylinders). I did the right one first and I thought "why does everyone think this is so difficult?" The left one wasn't so easy.

I also found direct replacement clips in the Ace Hardware bins.
 
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