Pb blaster is never useless … take the cylinder off it is less work than what you have already done and you can do it right with less frustration… it will only get worse the longer you hack and strip on that thing
Right…You could have had the entire front end rebuilt by now…Now it’s time to bugger up the spanner nuts and lock washers that secure the front hubs! Does it have locking hubs? More fun!
Yeah, it has locking hubs! It takes 2-3 hours to take everything apart and change the wheel cylinder, lube the backing plate, grease the bearing, and lube the adjuster, and put it back together. Everybody is right of course. I could have put new brake shoes and wheel cylinders and lubed things up right for some super-smooth working almost-like-new brakes on both front wheels in the same time or less. But sometimes you gotta know if you can do it or not. A challenge is a challenge.
I’m doing a work-a-round at present The reason for the brake bleed was a new master brake cylinder. So the only point of air entry was up top at the master cylinder line. I discovered all I had to do to get the front brakes working was bleed the other front brake line, for which the bleeder wasn’t stuck. The front brake master cylinder line splits from one into two lines, for left and right. By bleeding one side fully, it got rid of all the air in the common line, and therefore from the entire front brake system. Its working fine at this point.
I’ll concur stuck parts are frustrating. Going to the local tavern makes total sense to me when something gets stuck. You folks have some good ideas. (I’m talking about the techniques to free stuck parts, not the tavern, but that’s a good idea too.)
Don’t you hate it when you see instructions in the repair manual which says something like “Step 4. Remove the bolt”, when you can’t even see the bolt, and to remove the bolt you have to first take about 6 things off the engine to get access to the bolt, one of which is likely to drop on your foot in the process.
I had an experience the other day like this. The manual said “Remove the bolt with a jam nut.” For the of me I couldn’t figure out what a “Jam Nut” was! And even when I did think I figured it out (I think it means you put two nuts back to back which bind and allow you to twist out the stud-bolt), there was no way to do it as there wasn’t room for another nut to fit on that stud.
Ok, thanks for letting me vent. I’ll try the extractor technique on the stuck bleeder the next sunny weekend.
So did you ever get it? I’m having same problem and see it as a challenge as well. I’m fiance thinks the same thing yours does lol
Geez I thought something was wrong, then I see it was from five years ago. Holy cow. Way back in 1973 I was doing the brakes on my 68 Dart. Two of those dang things broke right off so the answer was a couple new cylinders. Back then you overhauled them for a couple bucks a piece unless you broke the bleeders off. Since then I have been more aware of using the proper wrench, but yeah, take it off and work on it on the bench. May have to replace it anyway so might as well get started.
I’ve always found these
to be a really, really great thing to have in my toolbox. I’d bet they’d work.
No, vice grips didn’t work. Surprisingly I didn’t need to do anything for quite a while; after bleeding the other side the brakes worked fine. Then about a year ago I was having trouble with my MC lid not sealing properly, and while debugging that problem (with the help of the experts here) I noticed the rounded-off side wheel cylinder was starting to dribble down the inside of the tire, so I took the hubs apart, pulled the drum & replaced it with a new wheel cylinder. Good thing I did b/c I discovered in the process the wheel bearings were a little shy on lube. I didn’t try to extract the rounded off bleeder screw on the bench, but maybe I should give it a go just for old times sake. I think I tossed the old one in the used parts box. I used to rebuild my wheel cylinders, but I can’t seem to find a source for rebuild kits for those wheel cylinders anymore, so I just buy a new one.
None of the parts stores around me can get caliper rebuild kits anymore either.