Morris Minor Owners Club

Last week, I mentioned on another post that I was going to be replacing Basil's Master Cylinder. The one I chose was from ebay, sold by ESM, whether it's still actual former Bull Motif stock being used up, I've no idea. But it was cheaper than buying from their Web Shop, as you can see.
So, the only genuine MC that are available now are the latter 13/16th ones, but no problem with that, Basil has the latter 8" front brakes anyway...

Cutting a long story short, I had the new MC in and out like a Fiddler 's elbow, well 3 times. Fortunately, one of Basil's little quirks is that when he was refurbished, they must've made their own box sections and they fitted the MC slightly higher than it should be; meaning I can easily get the Bolts in & out without messing with the Torsion bar
The problem was that I couldn't get any fluid to move from the reservoir, so was it because it needed priming or what?
Nope it wasn't that....
On the 3rd time it was out, I looked closely at the new MC, comparing it with the old one....
Is there a difference between the 7/8" and 13/16" other than the bore size... ?
It looked quite a bit narrower down the hole where the Operating Rod goes...
Could it be that there was something else different about it...?

. .
Boy is there ever...
Getting 2 identical length Alan Keys, I could easily see it...
. .
The original MC Operating Rod hole is close to parallel sided and 7/8" deep.
The new one is tapered to a narrow bottom but is approximately 1 & 7/16" deep, approximately half as deep again as the original item.
The problem I was having was that the Operating Rod was just going in and out of the hole and barely moving the actual Piston.
I was not going to get sufficient adjustment on the Operating Rod to take up all the slack, unless it was going to be barely on the end of the adjustment, so I took the easy way out and even with my lousy welding ability I welded a short extension to the operating rod.
I decided that all loads exerted on the rod while braking were compressive and even if the weld did separate somehow, the tapered shape of the hole would hold the end piece in place.
I'll be letting ESM know about this, perhaps it is a freak one-of, perhaps all the new ones are like it, I've no idea, but I thought I'd share the info...

Get the original one refurbished with new seals.

Do please let us know what ESM has to say. I am so fed up with parts not made to original spec. Imagine if you had really had to struggle with the torsion bar only to find this.......Grrr

Stephen

JOWETTJAVELIN wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 5:35 pm Get the original one refurbished with new seals.

I'd done that last year and it has started leaking again.
Only a fraction of what it was, but enough to make the inside of the rubber boot noticeably wet.

I suppose the torsion bar could be a "struggle" but I have never had any problems bending it down sufficiently to extract the bolts. It doesn't have to deflect much.
I use a suitably sized "D" shackle(s) and lever down using a short bar/large screwdriver and piece of timber on the underside of the chassis leg.

Update time.

I forgot to contact ESM back in august and only thought about it when some poor blighter on the fb group was struggling with the same symptoms.

So I contact ESM a couple of days ago, and this was the reply this afternoon:

Thank you very much for your email and for all the feedback regarding the master cylinder. We buy these in direct from Lockheed so we will need to check with them as to whether there have been any spec changes on the part over time, as well as looking at the stock we have.



Thank you again for bringing it to our attention.

So looks like Chinese quality issues again....

I scrapped a master cylinder a few weeks ago, I think it was ok but not sure, I just wouldn’t want to waste time fitting if there was any doubt. Maybe a mistake. I’m doing a lot of ‘getting rid of’ lately, I’ve decided ‘less is more’ ! I don’t find it easy though, after living with clutter for so long but when I’m no longer here, it would probably end up in a skip !

les wrote: ↑Thu Nov 09, 2023 5:27 pm I scrapped a master cylinder a few weeks ago, I think it was ok but not sure, I just wouldn’t want to waste time fitting if there was any doubt. Maybe a mistake. I’m doing a lot of ‘getting rid of’ lately, I’ve decided ‘less is more’ ! I don’t find it easy though, after living with clutter for so long but when I’m no longer here, it would probably end up in a skip !

Les, I'm coming over next week. If you have any Minor "clutter" I'd happily help relieve you of it.

I can bring a purse of monies with me too, for anything you want to sell me.

Thanks Rocco but it’s basically all gone, just mostly general none Morris ‘clutter’ ongoing ! I’ve found that you have to be in the right frame of mind to do this, otherwise you tend to have second thoughts.