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SUCCESS!!!!
Last night I took apart the Master Cylinder again. This time I took everyones advice and removed that little dust boot from off the end of the piston. MAN-O-MAN was there a whopping mess of calcified, solidified, hardened DIRT sitting on top of the Snap-RIng that that holds the piston in!!! I poured in some brake fluid and let it set a while. Then I went in there with a pick and poked around and broke up the muck so that it eventually turned to mud.
After about an hour and 4 applications of the brake fluid I could see the snap ring.
Snap Ring pliers were of no use for reaching this deep-set snap ring so I used my trusty Carb Diaphragm needle-nose pliers that have sharp hooked ends to grab the snap ring and squeeze it off.
I thought it strange that the piston would not pop out after removing the snap ring but I found out that the dirt had accumulated to the point of almost welding in the washer that is behind the snap ring. So another application of brake fluid the washer loosened up. THen I could pull the piston out. Notice I said "PULL" because the piston was so dirty that it was grinding on the MC body.
After getting the piston out I could see that the half that was outside of the MC was just awfully dirty. The part of the piston that lies inside the MC was just gummy and fill of soft gooey bits of what looked like sand covered in mucus. SO out came the brake fluid and the MC got a soaking and scrubbing with a soft toothbrush inside the piston cylinder.
After soaking for about 45 minutes I took it out and blew out all the orifices with compressed air. It was shiny and free of grit. I scrubbed the base of the MC with a brass brush to free up the corrosion and then dipped the MC again. After that I cleaned the compensation ports on the MC body (The two little holes on the base) and then moved on to the piston.
Wow, the piston.....
What can I tell you...you ALL were right!!
The 3 little holes on the piston were COMPLETELY sealed up with those same little grains of sand covered in mucus!! There is no way anything could have flowed back through that!!! So I picked them all out and soaked the piston in brake fluid for 30 minutes then blew out the holes with compressed air. I made sure I didnt bend the flaps covering the flowback ports too much. After the holes were clear I proceeded to sand off the corrosion on the half of the piston that sits outside the MC bore.
It was pitted and rough with dirt on the outside half. I made sure to be careful with the seal on the piston. After sanding and resoaking in Brake fluid and blowing off all corrosion residue the piston was ready to be put back in the MC bore.
I put the piston in the hole and it got a little stuck where the seal meets the body but with a small push it went on past and seated in the bore. I dropped on the washer and then the 20+ year old snap ring. Then I pushed the piston down with a thin long screwdriver and squeezed the snap ring to get it down into where it snaps in. Well, I let it go where it normally would snap in and removed my long needle-nose pliers and POING!!!!
The whole piston with washer and snap ring flew out past my nose.
I tried again and had the same results...this time getting brake fluid on my glasses and face.
This continued on for the next hour with me getting more and more upset.
After about an hour I decided to just take a break and go for a walk.
I drove to Autozone and talked to the workers there about snap rings. Then I went back home and decided to try something different.
I tried putting the snap ring in place without the piston and washer in the bore. Sure enough, when I released it in the place where it goes the snap ring didn't seem to SNAP into it's groove. In fact, when I turned the MC upside down the snap ring fell right out!!! 8O
So I looked at it closely and it seemed that the 20+ year old snap ring had shrunken or gotten soft. So I tried to expand it and POING!!!! it snapped right in half!!! :P
I laughed for about 5 minutes and headed back to Autozone to get a set of snap-rings from the self help section. When I got back there the guys asked me if I got that snap ring back on and I told them "no....the snap ring had a nervous breakdown and snapped!" They looked at me confused and I showed them the broken snap-ring and they all laughed. Then I told them that it was 20+ years old and they were all like "No wonder man, why didn't you tell us that before?!?!" :roll:
I got my snap rings and busted a move back home. Once I put the MC back together the new snapring went in like it was supposed to with an audible SNAP when it got into it's groove.
The piston travel was completely smooth when I put the lever back on and I've got full travel at the lever too! The piston now extends all teh way out like it's supposed to and the lever is MUCH easier to compress and move.
I also was able to sucessfully bench prime the MC!!!!
With the piston able to move along it's full length of travel it was MUCH MUCH easier to prime the MC before putting it back on the bike.
I am going to remove and clean the Calipers tonight when I get home. I'll be damned if I let those calipers contaminate my awesomely clean master cylinder!!!
My thanks to everyone that helped me out and posted in this thread.
My thanks to everyone that called and kept me encouraged and told me that I could do this.
God bless you guys, this really meant a lot to me. Mainly because I'm broke as a joke and couldnt afford to pay someone to do this for me.
I love doing my own work but married life doesn't afford me the time that I once had to do work on my bike. I'm going to have to crack down on the wife or wean her off of me some so that I can continue to put in work like I should on the bike.
God bless,
Dm of mD
Last night I took apart the Master Cylinder again. This time I took everyones advice and removed that little dust boot from off the end of the piston. MAN-O-MAN was there a whopping mess of calcified, solidified, hardened DIRT sitting on top of the Snap-RIng that that holds the piston in!!! I poured in some brake fluid and let it set a while. Then I went in there with a pick and poked around and broke up the muck so that it eventually turned to mud.
After about an hour and 4 applications of the brake fluid I could see the snap ring.
Snap Ring pliers were of no use for reaching this deep-set snap ring so I used my trusty Carb Diaphragm needle-nose pliers that have sharp hooked ends to grab the snap ring and squeeze it off.
I thought it strange that the piston would not pop out after removing the snap ring but I found out that the dirt had accumulated to the point of almost welding in the washer that is behind the snap ring. So another application of brake fluid the washer loosened up. THen I could pull the piston out. Notice I said "PULL" because the piston was so dirty that it was grinding on the MC body.
After getting the piston out I could see that the half that was outside of the MC was just awfully dirty. The part of the piston that lies inside the MC was just gummy and fill of soft gooey bits of what looked like sand covered in mucus. SO out came the brake fluid and the MC got a soaking and scrubbing with a soft toothbrush inside the piston cylinder.
After soaking for about 45 minutes I took it out and blew out all the orifices with compressed air. It was shiny and free of grit. I scrubbed the base of the MC with a brass brush to free up the corrosion and then dipped the MC again. After that I cleaned the compensation ports on the MC body (The two little holes on the base) and then moved on to the piston.
Wow, the piston.....
What can I tell you...you ALL were right!!
The 3 little holes on the piston were COMPLETELY sealed up with those same little grains of sand covered in mucus!! There is no way anything could have flowed back through that!!! So I picked them all out and soaked the piston in brake fluid for 30 minutes then blew out the holes with compressed air. I made sure I didnt bend the flaps covering the flowback ports too much. After the holes were clear I proceeded to sand off the corrosion on the half of the piston that sits outside the MC bore.
It was pitted and rough with dirt on the outside half. I made sure to be careful with the seal on the piston. After sanding and resoaking in Brake fluid and blowing off all corrosion residue the piston was ready to be put back in the MC bore.
I put the piston in the hole and it got a little stuck where the seal meets the body but with a small push it went on past and seated in the bore. I dropped on the washer and then the 20+ year old snap ring. Then I pushed the piston down with a thin long screwdriver and squeezed the snap ring to get it down into where it snaps in. Well, I let it go where it normally would snap in and removed my long needle-nose pliers and POING!!!!
The whole piston with washer and snap ring flew out past my nose.
I tried again and had the same results...this time getting brake fluid on my glasses and face.
This continued on for the next hour with me getting more and more upset.
After about an hour I decided to just take a break and go for a walk.
I drove to Autozone and talked to the workers there about snap rings. Then I went back home and decided to try something different.
I tried putting the snap ring in place without the piston and washer in the bore. Sure enough, when I released it in the place where it goes the snap ring didn't seem to SNAP into it's groove. In fact, when I turned the MC upside down the snap ring fell right out!!! 8O
So I looked at it closely and it seemed that the 20+ year old snap ring had shrunken or gotten soft. So I tried to expand it and POING!!!! it snapped right in half!!! :P
I laughed for about 5 minutes and headed back to Autozone to get a set of snap-rings from the self help section. When I got back there the guys asked me if I got that snap ring back on and I told them "no....the snap ring had a nervous breakdown and snapped!" They looked at me confused and I showed them the broken snap-ring and they all laughed. Then I told them that it was 20+ years old and they were all like "No wonder man, why didn't you tell us that before?!?!" :roll:
I got my snap rings and busted a move back home. Once I put the MC back together the new snapring went in like it was supposed to with an audible SNAP when it got into it's groove.
The piston travel was completely smooth when I put the lever back on and I've got full travel at the lever too! The piston now extends all teh way out like it's supposed to and the lever is MUCH easier to compress and move.
I also was able to sucessfully bench prime the MC!!!!
With the piston able to move along it's full length of travel it was MUCH MUCH easier to prime the MC before putting it back on the bike.
I am going to remove and clean the Calipers tonight when I get home. I'll be damned if I let those calipers contaminate my awesomely clean master cylinder!!!
My thanks to everyone that helped me out and posted in this thread.
My thanks to everyone that called and kept me encouraged and told me that I could do this.
God bless you guys, this really meant a lot to me. Mainly because I'm broke as a joke and couldnt afford to pay someone to do this for me.
I love doing my own work but married life doesn't afford me the time that I once had to do work on my bike. I'm going to have to crack down on the wife or wean her off of me some so that I can continue to put in work like I should on the bike.
God bless,
Dm of mD
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