Thread: Series 2a brake problems... Again

The slave cylinders should be the same front and rear. And I am pretty certain they are 1". 1.5" brake cylinders are more than twice the piston area, and so will need more than twice as much fluid moved.

So this would explain the situation you have. Probably work better if you used a lwb master cylinder, but I would be inclined to use the standard setup unless you know exactly what you are doing!

Originally Posted by JDNSW

The slave cylinders should be the same front and rear. And I am pretty certain they are 1". 1.5" brake cylinders are more than twice the piston area, and so will need more than twice as much fluid moved.

So this would explain the situation you have. Probably work better if you used a lwb master cylinder, but I would be inclined to use the standard setup unless you know exactly what you are doing!

Cheers JDNSW, I had a slight feeling in the back of my mind it would be down to the cylinders taking more fluid to displace. I had the set of 1 1/2” on the shelf and thought I’d take the gamble. Damn! I’ll have to get myself a set of 1” and see how I go.

Have a look at the bleeding setup suggested near the end of this thread:-

Rebuilding Sid

My 2a SWB has 1 1/2 inch front, 1 inch rear, so does my S3 SWB. Thought that was Std for SWB ?
What if you pump the peddle a few times, does it get harder.

whitehillbilly

According to the parts books Series 3 changed to a different front wheel cylinder in 1980, and at the same time went to the same master cylinder as the 109. I will bet this is when the change was to 1.5". It would not be surprising to find that a lot of the bleeding problems with Series Landrovers come from making this change and not changing to the different M/C. (I should mention that I have not owned an 88 since 1964!)

My Mistake.
1 1/4 on fronts.
I also made up a fitting that screws into the Bleed nipple hole. Then uses a large syringe to back bleed.
If someone is watching the Reservoir, it saves you overfilling. Once the syringe is nearly empty, suck it back again. then pump back it.
with clear tube to the syringe, you can watch for air bubbles.
Another method that may work is pump the peddle a few times, then on the last depress, jamb it in that position with a bit of wood to the seat box, and leave it overnight.
Air bubbles maybe forced out.


whitehillbilly

Sounds like you have not adjusted the snail cams before bleeding, adjust them all the way so that you cant turn the wheels, then back off one click so the shoes are just binding. Also fitting residual valves in the lines helps a lot and saves you having to constantly adjust the shoes to keep a good pedal.

Pedal does come up only a whisker after a few hard pumps. Pedal holds.

Snail cams where adjusted all the way up and bled and also tried it with snail cams completely de-adjusted to no avail.

If I clamp off front lines the pedal feels good. So I’ve bled almost a litre through the front also pressure bled with pump bottle.


Are the front cylinders supposed to be 1” or 1 1/4”? And will dropping down Half or quarter inch make that much difference? My swb is a 1961 so an early SIIA so not sure what cylinders it is supposed to have