Brake master cylinder, reseal or replacement.

[Joesson]

Brake master cylinder, reseal or replacement.

You may have noticed that I thought I had a leaking master cylinder, as it turned out I was incautious about filling the reservoir and the resultant spillage made me think I had a leak.
But what if I did have a leak?
I have read on here about replacement and/ or refurbishing brake calipers  but can't recall anything about the brake master cylinder. (Strange methinks because the master cylinder is as old as the calipers and so must be due or been done on someones 2)
That in itself I believe I could manage, replacement seals or unit, how difficult could that be? Not so different to replacement seals on a caliper or the wheel cylinder seals on drum brakes. But nowadays we have ABS and that is connected to the master cylinder and that is the  bit that concerns me.
Any one have knowledge or experience of refurbing or replacing the master cylinder and resetting/ bleeding the ABS?

[paulj]

No experience to offer but I have just read the pages of the workshop manual (BR9 to BR14).  It looks simple enough to remove, a few bolts, and then the whole assembly can be disassembled and seals etc changed.  After refitting there is a note to bleed the whole system but nothing specific related to the ABS operation.

The ABS actuator appears to be a separate assembly connected to the brake fluid lines.

As I say, all my comments are purely theory driven!

[Wilky1974]

Just reinforcing a previous post. Removal and replacement is a piece of cake! Replacement are also very inexpensive.

[Joesson]

No experience to offer but I have just read the pages of the workshop manual (BR9 to BR14).  It looks simple enough to remove, a few bolts, and then the whole assembly can be disassembled and seals etc changed.  After refitting there is a note to bleed the whole system but nothing specific related to the ABS operation.

The ABS actuator appears to be a separate assembly connected to the brake fluid lines.

As I say, all my comments are purely theory driven!

As I see it  the master cylinder is connected to the ABS unit and that's my area of concern.
Once disconnected would the ABS unit then need bleeding or whatever?

[Bossworld]

No experience to offer but I have just read the pages of the workshop manual (BR9 to BR14).  It looks simple enough to remove, a few bolts, and then the whole assembly can be disassembled and seals etc changed.  After refitting there is a note to bleed the whole system but nothing specific related to the ABS operation.

The ABS actuator appears to be a separate assembly connected to the brake fluid lines.

As I say, all my comments are purely theory driven!

As I see it  the master cylinder is connected to the ABS unit and that's my area of concern.
Once disconnected would the ABS unit then need bleeding or whatever?

I think you can get special tools for bleeding ABS, but I think from previous reading you'd just need to bench bleed the replacement master cylinder.

I've got a brand new one stored on my shelf of spares as I suspected it would perish at some point but so far so good, despite changing three hardlines on the car.

[Joesson]

That's a start, thanks Bossworld.