So, I've been having alot of brake problems over the last few weeks, and finally had enough of it. At the suggestion of Damon Saul, when I striped out my mk III Parts car this winter, I took the master cylinder also. At the time Damon said to me only this about installing it: "It's a little bit of work to swap it over, but not too bad." So I kinda threw it on the shelf until this passed weekend, when I decided to tinker around and try to fix my brakes. I did this while I was on some serious painkiller (to the point that I was loopy enough to argue with Norbie that water would burn!..LOL)This swap is in a word...easy as pie. Heres the steps to put it on...
Before doing any of this, I suggest you spray everything down with WD-40 or something similar...15 to 20 years of rust, grime and crap tend to make bolts not wanna release
1) drain the old master cylinder of fluid with either a turkey baster or something similar. This way, you don;t have to worry about the major mess if ya dump it accidentally.
2) remove the old brake lines from the original master cylinder. There should be 2 of them. One will come into the top towards the end of the master cylinder, and the other should be on the "Drivers side" of the master cylinder, about half way back. These are both 12 mm nuts I believe.
3) the Base of the master cylinder is held to the power brake boost by 4 12 mm nuts. the top right one can be a bit of a pain in the ass to get at, but with an extention and a swivel or "A wobbler" extention, makes it no problem.
4) cut the wiring that goes to the level sensor in the cap. Cut them as close to the cap as ya can, to leave you some wiring room to connect the new cap.
5)If ya haven't already, clean out the new mastercylinder with some brake clean. mine had some sludge in the bottom of it, as well as some old fluid in the metal base, so I sprayed enough brake clean into the resevoir to build up a smal lpuddle, and using a long thin metal punch, I worked the pumping action of the cylinder until all the brake clean had come out clean. Then dry out the cylinder and clean it up so it looks good underneath your hood.
6) Installation is almost the exact reversal of installation. The only difference you will notice is that the brake line that comes into the master cylinder on the side about halfway back will need a smal lbit of maneuvering to get it to screw in.
7) Fill up the resevoir, bleed the lines, and you should be good to go! This may also be a good opportunity to flush and refill the system. I decided to use Castrol GT LMA brake fluid. It exceeds DOT 3 and 4 fluid by a decent margin in most categories.
I can't comment as to whether or not there is any improvement over stopping ability or anything like that as I am waiting on new front calipers fro my car (broke the bleeder valves off both of the front calipers, and then broke an easy-out off in one of the calipers trying to remove the broken valve...) but I will say this... the mk III master cylinder is EASILY 1/4 the weight of the mk II one. I will have it completed this coming weekend and I'll give you impressions of it then.
Before doing any of this, I suggest you spray everything down with WD-40 or something similar...15 to 20 years of rust, grime and crap tend to make bolts not wanna release
1) drain the old master cylinder of fluid with either a turkey baster or something similar. This way, you don;t have to worry about the major mess if ya dump it accidentally.
2) remove the old brake lines from the original master cylinder. There should be 2 of them. One will come into the top towards the end of the master cylinder, and the other should be on the "Drivers side" of the master cylinder, about half way back. These are both 12 mm nuts I believe.
3) the Base of the master cylinder is held to the power brake boost by 4 12 mm nuts. the top right one can be a bit of a pain in the ass to get at, but with an extention and a swivel or "A wobbler" extention, makes it no problem.
4) cut the wiring that goes to the level sensor in the cap. Cut them as close to the cap as ya can, to leave you some wiring room to connect the new cap.
5)If ya haven't already, clean out the new mastercylinder with some brake clean. mine had some sludge in the bottom of it, as well as some old fluid in the metal base, so I sprayed enough brake clean into the resevoir to build up a smal lpuddle, and using a long thin metal punch, I worked the pumping action of the cylinder until all the brake clean had come out clean. Then dry out the cylinder and clean it up so it looks good underneath your hood.
6) Installation is almost the exact reversal of installation. The only difference you will notice is that the brake line that comes into the master cylinder on the side about halfway back will need a smal lbit of maneuvering to get it to screw in.
7) Fill up the resevoir, bleed the lines, and you should be good to go! This may also be a good opportunity to flush and refill the system. I decided to use Castrol GT LMA brake fluid. It exceeds DOT 3 and 4 fluid by a decent margin in most categories.
I can't comment as to whether or not there is any improvement over stopping ability or anything like that as I am waiting on new front calipers fro my car (broke the bleeder valves off both of the front calipers, and then broke an easy-out off in one of the calipers trying to remove the broken valve...) but I will say this... the mk III master cylinder is EASILY 1/4 the weight of the mk II one. I will have it completed this coming weekend and I'll give you impressions of it then.
