Brake master cylinder

Okay, here goes! I've got the filthy, leaky master cylinder out of the car and my new-old-stock rebuild kit (found on eBay) ready to install.

These external parts came off fairly easily. You can tell how long they've been marinating in brake fluid, rust, and crud.

Here's the pedal end of the piston rod. The white ring below it is the notorious "guide bearing" -- a tight-fitting bushing of nearly-indestructible plastic that somehow has to be broken apart and pulled out. Removal took me almost two hours of melting holes in the ring with a soldering iron and prying on it.

Here's all that's left of the guide bearing after removal. Good thing the rebuild kit contains a new one! (Yes, I did check first to make sure it would fit.)

The next hard part -- dismantling the pistons so I can slide off the rubber sealing cups. I suspected the cups actually were fine and didn't need replacing -- but having come this far, I felt I HAD to do the whole job!

The spring at the top is extremely strong. The whole assembly is slippery with brake fluid. To get it to this stage, I had to compress the spring, hold it, and then drive out a tiny pin to release the loop in the bottom piston. Hard, hard work.

I didn't have the strength to take pictures during the two-hour struggle to slide new rubber cups over the pistons, squeeze the spring back together, and tap that @#$% tiny pin into place. The finished cylinder doesn't look much different from the start. But so far (knock wood) it hasn't leaked!