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AP aluminium master cylinder plumbing........


Blatman

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I may be about to embarrass myself........ 😳

I have a Caterham AP ally master cylinder (as I guess, quite a few of you do) which I fitted in place of the inadequate (when using 4 pots) standard Girling thing. It has been brough to my attention that it may be incorrectly plumbed in. I have (as has just about every other Se7en I have ever looked at) fitted it so that the outlet nearest the front of the car is the front circuit, and the outlet nearest the flange/pedal operates the rear circuit. A call to AP this morning has confirmed that this is WRONG 😳 😳

Apparently, the rearmost outlet, nearest the pedal, should be working the fronts, and the front outlet is for the rear circuit. This is based on a calculation of fluid flow (and other internal workings of the cylinder). The chap at AP said that for a road car, it wouldn't make much, if any, difference to the operation of the braking system, but that during a race scenario, the extra capacity of fluid that is transported by the rear most outlet of the cylinder would help with the effects of pad knock off/long pedal, etc. I asked if the extra fluid supplied to the rear outlet is partly to blame for the "rears locking first" issues that Se7ens have, and if swapping round the circuits would resolve it. I was told it wouldn't, which is a shame, BUT having the circuits fed by the wrong section of the master cylinder can't be "a good thing" IMO...........

Does anyone have any experience or opinion on what I have been told, 'cos my next phone call is going to be to order some longer Goodridge hoses so that I can put my braking system right...............

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True, but IIRC, on a Caterham, the master cylinder faces "backwards", IE the pedal pushes the pushrod for the master cylinder in the direction if the rear of the car, so in a Caterham, it's logical......on the Westfield, the cylinder is mounted facing forwards, not backwards........
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Maybe tha guy at AP didn´t know the 7 properly. In nearly every other car I know the master cylinder is mounted the other way round, reservoir to the front. Maybe he got confused by this while talking about front/rear/next-to-pedal etc.

 

Marius

 

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I don't understand the problem. The Caterham part works on Caterhams with the brake piping as standard. On a Westfield it doesn't because the pedal box arrangement is different, so you have to mess with your pipework.

 

There's a geometric nevitability about the bigger bore piston going nearer the pedal, it's happy coincidence that this makes the front outlet the front brakes on a Caterham.

 

I presume the 'natural' solution for a Westfield is the balance bar/dual master cylinder arrangement, which is both cheaper and absolutely preferable.

 

Paul

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