Honing wheel & Master Cylinder

R

russcc

Well-known member
Rumble Seat, (bless his soul), recommended using cutting oil to hone with so you get a better finish. This may have been written before water based cutting fluids started to supplant oil/sulphur cutting fluids. The water base might be a lot easier to clean out after honing, but would it give the same finish as the old stuff ? Any experiences to share ? Thank you Fordbarners.
 
If your master or wheel cylinders have pits or other internal damage, it is a better bet is to replace them. Many years ago we did hone them at the Ford dealer where I worked, but many still had leaks in spite of careful honing.
 
For wheel cylinders I've always had good luck using either Berryman's B12 chemtool or WD-40 followed by a good cleaning with chemtool. However, if it is too badly pitted, you probably should replace it or possibly have it sleeved at some place like White Post Restorations. This is not a recommendation, merely an option. FWIW
 
I never use anything other than brake fluid to wet the hones. It's nasty and I don't enjoy it but that is what the industry taught me.

Clean out with paper toweling and more brake fluid. Assemble cups, inner caps, pistons, and spacer spring wetted with brake fluid. Then Attach push rod and boot dry.

All day long. No come backs.
 
I tend to use new when available, but on the few occasions I've honed one, I use the same procedure as A bones above.
 
I was always taught to use only brake fluid as well. The "cutting oil" suggestion sounds wrong to me.
 
Thank you, I get the brake fluid honing idea, but which brake fluid since I am converting to DOT 5. Because 5 is synthetic I am not sure it would be good choice to hone with. Opinions, experience ? Thank you Fordbarners.
 
I have been using a lot of DOT5 the last twenty years.
If you are going to use DOT5 you should NEVER hone a cylinder. Replace it! That stuff will find a place to leak.
I never put D5 in a car unless I replace ALL cylinders.
If the cylinders need to be honed I recommend DOT 3 or 4. I prefer D4 but I have had D5 in my F1 since January 2000 and it is still clean. I intend to flush the system in the next few weeks.
When you hone a cylinder you should run a clean rad through it, squirt in some brake fluid or cutting oil or soluble oil or monkey sweat or what ever, hone for about three second moving the hone back and forth.
If there are pits or other marks in the cylinder you should put it in your scrap metal container. That’s 64 years of brake experience talking.
I’ve seen guys hone cylinders and put new kits in them and while they were bleeding the brakes the fluid was leaking on the brake shoes. I once had an
Opel Record that was honed so much to get the pits out that it leaked fluid out the cylinders while parked!
New brake cylinders for old cars are cheap. Especially for Fords.
 
Oh, and after you hone a cylinder clean the hell out of it.
You a lot of brake clean and compressed air. If you have the cylinder off the car use plenty of really hot water, then blow it out with a little brake clean and air. Wear glasses when you monkey with brake fluid. I got some in my eyes in 1954. I can still feel it.
NEVER blow brake fluid with air. Never. NEVER! Have you ever wished somebody would put you out of your missery?
 
There is special lubricant to put on the pistons that go in brake cylinders. It’s usually called brake assembly lube. Be careful now, it’s not the same stuff that you put on brake pads or where the brakes shoes rub on the backing plates.
The one I have now is McKay brake cylinder assembly lube with rust inhibitor.
Do it right and you should never have to do it again for a loooooong time.
 
An old timer told me that back in the day most Ford shops had a no go guage for master cylinders and if you had to hone it so much that the guage would drop in and the cylinder didn't clean up, it was replaced. Maybe Supereal knows something about this. I too have found that if it is pitted, and it usually is it is better to replace or resleeve it
 
Sleeping may be better than a new cylinder. Especially if they use brass or stainless.
I took the wheel cylinders to a brake rebuilding place near here to have them sleeved.
I always thought they did it themselves but they sent them out to some other place.
Well, some other place sleeved them and sent them back in a poor package and so one cylinder was lost in the mail.
Now here is the problem, the car is a Peugeot 404 convertible. They never sold these converts in the U.S. and only 700 were ever built.
The French refused to send us a cylinder to the U.S.
Just happens the car owner has a daughter that is living in France.
She got one from Germany for $180 and sent it to us. Wrong cylinder! I never did get the right cylinder. I hauled the car back to the owner. That was two years of time wasted.

The moral of the story is; make damn sure the people involved understand that you want your parts back and not lost in the mail. Or send them to White Post, they package stuff good.

Aaron Griffey
Hayward, ca.
 
I thought this should be easy. Just "Google" "White Post Sleeving Services" and voila', up comes a very informative page. However, not a sniff of pricing information. My experience has been that in this situation, look for an alternative source because your're not gonna like the price. I had a Corvette master cylinder done by a place in Minneapolis several years ago for $100. It has worked perfectly.

Given the current situation, that may not be a good alternative either.

I hope someone chimes in and proves me wrong.
 
The best solution IMO would be to find some older units made in the US. I purchased some from Rock Auto a few years back and they were in old dusty dirty boxes they must have bought up from old stock from somewhere. But problem is when they are gone they are gone and then you get the new China stuff. Might start with checking with all of the known good suppliers, the ones that deal in NOS and old US stock.
 
If sleeving a mastercylinder or split boresize wheelcylinder pressfit must be dead on or liners come right out.
Splitbore wheelcylinders being worst since liners is short.
A straightbore wheelcylinder will just leak between liner and cylinder not fail catastrophic.
Done lots of odd ones during the years but for anything that can be bought over the counter is usually to expensive to reline...
Agree with Jseery look for something made by a known manufacturer and not made offshore.
An old NOS unit may need new seals if it has been sitting for ages.
 
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Thank for your comments. Just checking my options in case the MC doesn't clean up. I will see if Rock Auto still has any. I also got a US made one from Advance Auto a few years ago that is on the roadster.
 
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