Brake Masters

Who says I am a masterbraker?

So, I fitted the brake master cylinders today, as Westfield had sent me the nuts and bolts to do so, but infuriatingly, no washers. So first it was off to Home Depot, where I picked up a wobble bar (don't ask), as well as some metric capscrews so I could mount the fuel pump and filter later. I have a feeling I will be spending a fair amount of time at Home Depot in the coming weeks. It is easier than getting Mr. Angry on the phone to complain about the missing bits and bobs.

Talking of Bobs, I am playing golf with him in the morning, so there won't be a ton of progress tomorrow.

Anyway, back to the brake cylinders. While the manual says you should cut down the brake pushrod to fit, with the bias bar that is not the case and the pushrods should not be trimmed, if you do, you run the risk of the pedal hitting the bulkhead - I was able to adjust the pedal so the bulkhead to pedal face

distance was 170mm, which is exactly what Westfield had told me the measurement was on one of the cars at the factory, then I trimmed the clutch pushrod so that I could get the pedals at the same height - I ended up removing 10 mm. The pedals still seem a little high compared to the accelerator, but this can be adjusted later.

Lots of fiddling around in a cramped space, but I am very happy with the result - that's another item crossed off the list. The bias bar is a nice piece of kit and should be easy to adjust the amount of relative pressure in the front and rear brake circuits - very important for track use, particularly in a car that has no ABS.

At least I can pedal

However, it is not all sweetness and light. On the other side of the bulkhead, the reservoirs that fit on top of the master cylinders are very tall and only just clear the steering column (good job I omitted the spacer that would have dropped the column down a bit - I feel sure that I would not have been able to fit the reservoirs). As it is, I cannot get the cap off the one you see on the left and it is supposed to have a cap with a floatswitch in it to tell me when the brake fluid level is low.

This is a little tight

Cue Mr. Angry. An e-mail was fired off to Westfield. Actually he was very nice to them, as it turns out a number of the parts I thought were missing mysteriously turned up in a box of parts I had put aside for later. In my defense, they did pack the bonnet hardware in with the rear light assembly with no labeling - how was I to know that is where the pieces would be hiding. I also found the missing front headlamp brackets there. Mr Apologetic wrote a follow up e-mail to Westfield. I will promise to take all the extra pieces back when I am in the UK in July.


I got a chance to play with the rivnut tool I had bought last summer to mount the fuel pump and filter. I did have a bit of a battle with a rivnut that came apart while I was screwing a capscrew into it - important lesson learned there - make sure the rivnut is securely seated and don't cross the threads - I had to take a reciprocating saw to the capscrew to get it apart.


After a lot of back and forth I decided to mount the pump where Westfield suggest in the manual (there is a first time for everything), on the chassis rail just under the tank - I have seen a lot of people who have mounted the pump on the bottom frame, but I was worried about it being too exposed there, particularly for track use.

Filter

The position has been changed to better align with the new outlet position on the tank, but who knows how it will work with the swirl pot (a device to prevent fuel starvation under hard cornering) once I get it? The new position to mount the pump means it is a tank out job to replace it so it better not go wrong!

High pressure fuel pump