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MG MGA - Problem bleeding the hydraulic system

I am helping a friend get his MKII back on the road. It has been idle for several years. The right rear brake drum was frozen and we were fortunate that the brake adjuster hole just lined up and we were able to get the drum off (ended up replacing the wheel cylinder). We also rebuilt the M/C. The valve washer and cup were in pretty bad shape. Both pistons stroke freely in their bores and there are no leaks after the rebuild.

We tried to bleed the system this afternoon using an ezibleed. We got pretty good flow from the clutch slave cylinder but could not get any flow from any of the brake bleeders.

Our first suspect is the M/C, but as we found, the pistons moved easily in the M/C with no leaks at the front or rear of the M/C. We got some flow from the front caliper flex line connection when it was loosened. Has anyone experienced a problem with blockage inside the M/C (possibly with the valve cup)?

The second suspect is a blockage in the hydraulics in the brake light switch. That is such a pain to get to with everything in place in the car. We would rather not have to remove the right toe board but will if the M/C proves to be OK.

We reattached the clutch and brake lines to the M/C, but the M/C is not installed in its bracket so getting it out will not be a huge problem. I am thinking of using my old M/C to brake switch line with the open end in a jar and see what happens when the M/C is pressurized using the ezibleed.

Any thoughts or suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks as always,
Don Carlberg
Don Carlberg

I find that you still need to have an assistant to operate the pedal on the brake side. The Ezibleed just makes the job MUCH faster as more fluid gets pushed through.


dominic clancy

If there is no flow out of the brake bleeders then you should go systematically back. Next step would be to loosen the banjo into the rear cylinders and see if anything spurts out there, and so on back to the MC.
A Pearse

We are going to make another attempt on Saturday. Thanks for the input. I'll update when we have results.
Don Carlberg
Don Carlberg

We took another crack at it this morning. Removed the M/C and reinstalled the check valve on the brake side. Not sure if it was fully seated from the earlier rebuild.

We were able to bleed the rear brakes through a combination of Eezibleed with brake pedal assist. It would not bleed by Eezibleed alone.

A new problem surfaced with the front calipers and it looks as though they will need to be rebuilt along with replacement of the flexible brake lines.

Thanks to Dominic for the suggestion to assist with the brake pedal. We found that "buried" in the Eezibleed instructions downloaded from the internet.

Don Carlberg
Don Carlberg

This thread was discussed between 26/01/2009 and 31/01/2009

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This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGA BBS is active now.