J
justin666
Guest
I don’t care what anyone says, this is not a couple of hours job!!! :evil: Everything will get in your way and try to prevent you from changing the thing so try to be patient and it will all come together in the end.
Right, how I did it.
Firstly, clamber and wedge yourself in the drivers side footwell and remove the pin that holds the cylinder rod fork to the pedal. This can be a bit fiddly but on the grand scale of things it’s the least of your worries!
Next job is to clear a path to the top of the Master cylinder. Now without taking the whole inlet manifold or plenum off you will only manage to remove a few bits and bobs to allow you just enuf room to attack it. I bare in mind you will be moving stuff about with brake fluid in so BE CAREFULL ya don’t get it on ya paint work.!!
I started by undoing the 14mm union bolt that connects brake servo pipework. This is the one at the back left of the engine bay and it mounted on a bracket that’s bolted to the top of the strut. Undo the bolt, remove the bracket and wedge the pipe over by the plenum. You should be able to see the master cylinder just behind the plenum with the pipe moved out the way.
To give a little more clearance I found it best to raise the engine slightly as later down the line you will be greatfull for the extra couple of inches this gives.!! With the car safely on axel stands place a jack (with a good sized block of wood) up under the engine and jack up to the sump. You need to jack to the point where it just starts to take the weight of the engine. Then you can go about removing the driver side engine mount. Once out the way you should be able to jack the engine up about 3 to 4 inches above its normal height but while doing this check to make sure everything is clear and nothing is catching.
Back to that pesky cylinder now. Remove the master cylinder bottle from its bracket and then get rid of the bracket as well. Disconnect the pipe between the bottle and the cylinder at the cylinder end being careful with any fluid that’s still in there.
Undo the small union bolt that connects into the end of the master cylinder. This is a pain to get onto as only a short 10mm spanner will get in the gap. After about an hour of fractions of turns the bolt will be out the way and the solid clutch pipe can be moved carefully out the way.
Using a long 12mm socket you should just about be able to get onto the top nut that holds the master to the bulkhead. Then dive under the car, wedge your arm up behind the engine and undo the bottom nut. The Cylinder should now be loose . However, no matter how much you wiggle the thing about it will not come out due to everything getting in the way. This is where I dived back in the footwell again and removed the fork from the cylinder shaft by just spinning it off. With that out the way I found I was just able to get the cylinder out from under the car. I don’t think it will come out the top.
Feel free at this point to have a ciggy and wonder where the past few hours have gone. You will also notice lots of small cuts on your hands.!!!!
Refitting then….
Basically in reverse order one tip tho. On the new cylinder I pushed the rod in and the placed a zip tie round the fork and secured it to the casting. This in effect makes the whole unit a lot shorter and a damn site easier to get back in. Once the new cylinder is roughly in place and the rod ready to go through the bulkhead I just snipped the zip tie
One the cylinder is mounted in place, loosely replace the top and bottom mounting nuts. You will need some movement in the cylinder to get the small union bolt back in. Again, Fidley as anything to do and be careful not to cross thread it. Do not do this up tight just yet, once started, tighten up the top and bottom retaining nuts and then nip up the union.
Replace bottle bracket, replace bottle and pipe to master cylinder, reconnect brake pipe union and bracket, attach engine mount, Reconnect fork to clucth pedel, fill master cylinder reservoir with brake fluid, bleed the system from the slave and jobs a good un
I think that pretty much covers everything.. if there is anything I have missed then by all means add it in
J.
