Bringing the wife's normally trouble free TR6 out of storage last weekend
brought a surprise: no brakes! I
had flushed the system last spring, so I was really surprised even though it's
been over 6 years since I did
the brakes...
Anyway, the master cylinder was empty. On the large front brake side. But there
was NO evidence of brake
fluid leaking anywhere.
So I refilled the master and set about bleeding the brakes, assuming once I got
pressure back into the
system, I would quickly find the leak. The rear bled fine with no air evident.
The right front also bled fine with
some air evident. The left front simply will not bleed... after 20 minutes of
bleeding I still have more air than
fluid coming out and no pedal to speak of.
I pulled the master to see if it was leaking by at the booster, but there was
no evidence of anything there
either. I reassembled and went back to bleeding. Another 15 minutes and still
air. Then I noticed that on
every upstroke of the pedal, a thin stream of bubbles was coming out of the
master into the reservoir. At
this point I was conivnced I still had air in the master so I proceeded to pump
the pedal to allow all the air to
work itself out. After another 10 minutes of slow pumping, I'm still getting
air every upstroke.
I have not "bench bled" the master... but thought at this point I wouldn't gain
much seeing as how the air is
still coming after all this bleeding... I figure it has to be getting in from
somewhere? And still don't knwo
where the original fluid went.
Ideas? Replace the master?
Thanks!
Bill Elliott
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