Brake Pipe Fitting

Hi All,

I've got a Mk2 16v Servo on my Mk1. The car has had brand new brake pipes all round. Maybe a stupid question but if your standing in front of the car looking inside the engine bay. Which brake pipe connections on the master cylinder are the front and which are the rear?? I have really poor braking and the rears lock up if I really press hard on the brake pedal and the fronts don't. Just thinking the guy who started my project that I've taken on. Might have connected the brake pipes round the wrong way.

Any help would be great

Thanks Daniel

It's not a wrong connection you have but probably the lack of a rear brake compensator . This can be dangerous under heavy breaking as you may have found out !

See … The Mk1 Golf Owners Club


Hope this helps ?

You want diagonal circuits so that if one chamber in the master cylinder fails you will will have one rear brake and one front brake.

So on mine I have a 4 outlet master cylinder, looking at the engine bay from the front I have the following set up

_____________________________________________
To Front drivers side ———- To Rear Passenger Side
 
    To Front Pass side ———- To Rear Drivers Side
_____________________________________________
                            Grill (Front of Car)

The original GTI setup used 3 outlets and therefore one of the diagonal circuits was connected via a tee piece.

Hope that helps

Sorry I forgot to say that the master cylinders brand new and the rear brake valve. So's the rear calipers and I've got braided hoses all round. There's no air in the system. My brakes just hardly work at all. Just someone said to me that if the rears are locking up I might have the brake pipes in the wrong holes in the master cylinder. I'm not sure if my master cylinder is the bigger 22.2mm. I think I'll try that first.

Is it possible to get the brake pipes in the wrong holes on the master cylinder though??

Does the servo match the master cylinder? Its a common mistake, but the plungers are at different depths so one must match the other. Obviously they look similar but the size would give it away. A part number would be ideal, though.

Secondly, yes its possible to connect the pipes incorrectly, but it would only have an effect if one of the dual hydraulic circuits failed (or had air in, etc). Its a safety thing - if you lost 2x front brakes but had 2x rear brakes, you'd have dangerously poor braking (rears would lock at quite low deceleration).

Another thing it could be - are the rear shoes adjusted so they're close to the drums? The auto adjusters are notorious for not adjusting properly.

I'll have a look for part no.'s

There's a good chance that they don't match. I can't really see any other problem as all the parts are brand new apart from the front calipers and I checked that they worked before I fitted them. You can see that the brake pads are working but the discs don't get hot at all. When I have locked up its defiantly only the rears locking up as I go side ways.

It has a rear disc conversion from a Mk3 Golf GTi.

Dan-Mk1 said

It has a rear disc conversion from a Mk3 Golf GTi.

Aaaaah right, makes all the difference! Make sure you have a load compensator fitted, and that the calipers are on the right way round (otherwise you can't bleed the air out of them). You need to have the load compensator properly adjusted too. Without the proper equipment, all you can do is trial and error…. Also, any lowering and/or stiffer rear springs, will affect how this works too.

I've just checked how my pipe are connectted to the master cylinder this morning. Below is the connections.

Front Drivers                                Front Passengers

Rear Drivers                                 Rear Passengers

Front of Car ( Grill)

The rear drivers goes into the brake light switch unit. Then follows to the rear drivers.

Is this going to cause me problems?? Also the car is striped out and is lowered which may cause me problems with the rear valve.

Can anyone tell me where I should be looking for the part numbers on the servo and master cylinder??

lhasadreams I looked through your photo's of your rebuild, nice car by the way and good job.

You basically have the same brake setup as me. But I have noticed that you seem not to have the brake light unit?? How are your brake lights working??