been messing with my brakes the past few days and when I think I've got them all finished i can't stop worth a ****. So i do everything over again, bleed em again blah blah blah, and still nothing. Then i noticed that alot of fluid has come out all over the reservoir....damn hole in the cap. my buddy welded it up for me and it's better now, right now he's got it again fixing a pinhole in it that spray a little stream of fluid out, but when he gets back i should be golden. i have no idea why I ALWAYS overlook the little ****....
See now, if you were a mechanical doofus (like me) you would start by looking at the simple ****...because you're PRAYING it's something cheap/easy to fix.
Isn't there supposed to be a rubber bellows on the inside of the lid ? It expends as the level of fluid drops. The hole in the lid lets air in, so the bellows can expand. The rubber bellows seals the top of the reservior to stop air from contaminating the fluid. Or am I missing something here?
Hey Switch.........I dunnno where you got your master cylinder cap but they come with a little vent hole in 'em. It usually has a small baffle on the bottom side of the cap to divert any fountain of fluid inside the cylinder from coming out the vent hole.. Then again, all the new ones I've seen don't have a visible vent of any kind. Just a big ol rubber gasket/seal to keep water and dirt out. I'd imagine the small amount of fluid used to move the shoes and brake pads under braking wouldn't necessarily need a vent..........hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm unless you filled the resevoir completely up with no air pocket to compensate for the loss of fluid in the master cylinder when braking.
Sometime even when you check it, it still is what was wrong. Back in my dirt trackin' days I had a Chevelle that had an Accel Super Coil mounted on the inside of the firewall with the wire going through a rubber sleeve and to the distributor. Went out to fire it to put it on the trailer and it would not start. OK, check the obvious, pulled the wire out of the dizzy and bent it around to arc it to the firewall and you could run a bead with the damned thing. So I figure must be fuel, spend an hour and a half checking everything else, pulling and blowing out lines, etc.. Nothing. finally figured out there was an internal break in the wire and when I bent it to arc it it worked, when it was in the dizzy it didn't make contact. Show up late for the show, and crashed. Aint old cars fun.
ok it's still got a damn pin hole in it and my buddy had to leave....damnit. I'm supposed to be somwhere soon. anyone know of a temporary fix until I can get the cap back to a welder? I don't know what'll hold up brake fluid...
I HATE brake fluid. Ugh. Paying a shop to do brakelines and **** is the FIRST thing I'm gonna start doing when I can afford to. Brakelines are bad enough, but brake fluid is such gross, nasty ****... BTW, I don't really think there should be pressure on the reservoir cap, even with my car with its cast-metal cap I can bleed the brakes without it shooting too much. It definitely doesn't affect pressure if I push the pedal too hard either, just loses fluid.
To get any good help you'll have to start at the beginning. Did the brakes have a problem? What was it doing. Make, model and year of the car and brakes if they are up dated. What have you done so far? etc. We all have to start with the basics. Add my name to the list that thinks your M/cyl cap is not the problem.
A buddy was doing the brakes on a late model truck for me... after re-doing it several times, 3 master cylinders, new brake lines it still wouldn't bleed properly. We talked to an old brake man and he suggested that we squeese the front calipers closed while bleeding the system.. hey presto - the pads were worn and the space between the pads and roter was making it so that there was too much play to bleed...
the brakes were workign fine, i was just getting a little more brake fade than I liked when I had to ride in traffic so I was cleanign stuff up and bleeding the lines to get any air/moisture out taht might be in there. Apparantly when my buddy got into a wrestling match with the cap he made a hole in it. did more things to the car and then yesterday drove it up the street and back. The brakes worked real ****ty then. bought a one man brake bleeder thing and did that over again this morning thinking we might've ****ed up and let more air into the lines and I was right, there was a pretty good amoutn of air in the front brakes, but that's taken care of now, and after that i noticed the brakes worked good, then bad. that's when i noticed the fluid coming out of the cap everytime pressure built up, my buddy tried welding the hole up but theres still a couple of pinholes letting fluid out, but they work alot better now, although I'm still losing fluid. I guess I'll pull the cap back off and clean it real good, then give it a nice coat of JB and see what happens tomorrow, that's pretty much my only option considering I'm not gonna find another cap like that one around here.
Update-ok i just talked my buddy at work and we can actually get a remanufactured master cylinder for my car (which is really suprising considering it's advanced auto) for $20-something bucks after my emp. discount. So i got him to order me that and will have it sunday morning. is there anyway i can check the brake booster to see if it's working properly? the mastercylinder it one of those single deals and i'm wondering if theres a dual ones that'll bolt up using the same booster and all, I know i don't have time to change the whole ***embly out and fabricate **** to mount something different...
You're lucky a dual master cylinder is hard to find for '43 Hupmobiles with the optional power brakes... but seriously don't ride the drum brakes. Hit them hard and then let up to let them cool. The pot metal screw in cap on my 57 Ford twisted off before the threads would release. A new or rebuilt m/cyl was the only cure. I drove a wooden plug into the hole to keep the dirt out until the new one came.
what the hell is a hupmobile? i have a 60 pontiac, ahhaha. I haven't found a dual mastercylinder, the one we had is just a sstock replacement. i was sayign I'd like to find a dual mastercylinder that would just bolt right up.
if you have 4 bolts holding the master to the booster then i don't think you can find a dual, if it's a 2 bolt then any gm after 1965 or 66 are dual. just make sure it's for drum/drum and the rod depth are the same. of course you still have to re-plumb the front brakes.
well it's a 4 bolt so i guess I'm SOL. I just need to get this **** back on the road so I can get to work next week when's it's gonna be my only car...
At the moment I changing my 59 Ford to a Daul circut setup. Maybe this might help. Yesterday a brake guy I know come by and told my to look at 60's chrysler stuff or early toyota land cruiser supose to be all 4 bolt hole and will work. I have yet to try this so this might not be right. But this dude does brake conversion work everyday so I don't see why it wouldn't be... Gene.
Is this the same car that you were trying to wire the other day? LOL Dude, stick to paint and body. I'll bet you're great at it. But the Mechanical Repair Gods seem to hate you. I promise I'm not tryin' to bust your balls but seriously, on future projects,try to remember that the most important part of mechanical repair is accurate diagnosis. Know exactly what you are going to fix before you ever take anything apart. I spent 12 years as a mechanic and it is a long learning curve and everyone has projects that go badly but mistakes can be drastically minimized by good diagnosis and preplanning. Regards, Big Daddy Eric
yeah, I'm tryign to work out getting a littel $$ so i can send it somwhere to have some things checked out and worked on. THe wiring would've have been that big of an issue if it hadn't had been so screwed up when i got the car(it was a mess, and the only thing that worked was the ignition and the lighter). I'm learning though, and alot of **** I know, it's just the little stuff that gets me...I iwsh I could just stick to the body and paint, but I'm too damn brake to not try to do it myself. None of my buddy around here know **** about cars so all i've got is you guys...
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