Master cylinder problems...

[thenick]

Hi all,

I'm currently replacing the master and slave cylinders and have run into a bit of a problem. The slave cylinder came of just fine, as did the master cylinder pedal shaft. I'm now stuck with the fluid union attaching to the master cylinder. I tried with a 13mm spanner which did nothing but look like it would round off the nut, so I went and bought the special 13mm nut spanner for the job. This is also trying to round off the nut and I haven't even been able to put much force on it! So I have undone the bolts holding the cylider to the bulk head and will try and pull it aside to get a better purchase on the offending nut, but should this fail, what can I do?? Would it be best to saw off the pipe and somehow replace it? How hard would this be? Suggestions please!

Nick

[kevin63]

I definitely wouldn't saw the pipe off, having seen where it goes I would say that would be mega trouble, you should just be able to get the mole grips on the nut or even pipe grips.

[GreenV8S]

The fittings are soft brass and easily damaged, as you're finding. Don't ever try loosening them with an ordinary open ender, you'll just knacker then. You need a brake fitting spanner which is essentially a ring spanner with a slot to go over the pipe. If the fitting is already too far gone for this to work, I think you have several options:

• use a mole wrench or similar to grab the fitting and turn it
• cut the pipe as close to the fitting as you can, hopefully losing no more than half an inch, tweak the routing of the pipe to recover this length, get a pipe flaring tool and fit the right size fitting
• cut the pipe at a convenient point further away, buy a new piece of pipe, a flaring kit and the right fittings to join a new pipe onto the end of the existing pipe with a new end fitting
• decide that it was about time you replaced all the brake lines anyway

If that was me I'd start at the top and work down ...

Edit to add: if you do end up cutting the pipe you will need to get the swarf out of it. An old fashioned pipe cleaner shoved down it before you start might do the trick.

Edited by GreenV8S on Saturday 13th October 18:19

[thenick]

Right solved the problem...! For anyone interested, I checked where it went and found it only went through the bulkhead and onto a connector block in the footwell. Then I just sawed the pipe off with a hacksaw and pulled it through into the footwell, took it to a local motor factors and got a new bit of pipe the same length made up with new fittings. I bent the new pipe into the shape of the old pipe and stuck it back in, good as new! Lesson learnt, when the Steve Heath bible said an open ended spanner will suffice, it was lying. Got the proper tool and had no other problems, luckly all solved for £2.80