AMT 16V Conversion. Evolution Two - More Bodywork .

At last the front is finished (apart from painting). It took ages to get it 'nearly there', the hardest part has been the filling and sanding/painting needed to get it looking tidy, the front panel was distorted due to the cutting and welding and needed hours of work.

unpainted front unpainted front 2
Front removed Alt wiring Engine bay

Having 'finished' the Clubman front the next job was to get an MOT, which is never straight forward for me... The biggest problem I had was the brakes or more precisely the lack thereof. It was thought that the choice of two .625 masters in the AMT Pedalbox was wrong, 'expert' opinion was to use a .75 for everything or maybe a .625 front / .75 rear. All fine in theory but after putting the new .75 in I found a problem, the rods in both my existing masters were bent (see pic below). This was caused by the rod being set too short (by me) in an effort to get the brake pedal to line up with the clutch and accelerator. The pivot of the brake pedal meant downward pressure was applied to these rods as the brake was pressed, not a forward motion - pushing the fluid. As the rods/arms got bent then the brakes worked less and less and you pushed harder - bending them even more. My solution has been to move the master cylinder outwards towards the driver using bigger spacers than those supplied (others have done the same), this means that the arm in the master cylinder can now move to its fullest extents and the pedal is at a good height. An important thing to consider is that the master cylinder 'returns' fully (the arm is fully out) when you let go of the brake pedal, otherwise residual pressure remains in the system and your brakes will lock on! Trust me I know! The other failure was interaction of the front lights, this was thought to be caused by me wiring in the sidelights wrong, however I changed that and in the process found that the multiplug for the front wiring had a broken connector in the sidelight circuit, so it wasn't my fault, honest!

pedal box box in car master cylinders

At the moment I'm using a single .625 cylinder (not two as shown above), the brakes are finally working but need more bleeding, it feels as though there is still some air trapped in the system somewhere. Once I'm happy that I have a setup that works I can experiment with braking balance and cylinder size(s)

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