Rear wheel cylinder bolts....aaaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh

The rear wheel cylinder bolts have seized in place.  Beginning to wish i'd never touched it as it was only an advisory on the MOT.  Turns out the cylinder is knackered so replacing it is needed and I'm past the point of no return now anyway!    
Any suggestions of how to get these bolts out? They are seized and to top it off they are allen key headed so these have obviously rusted and rounded off.    

Don't you just love old cars…..

Sometimes the cylinder bolt holes arn't 'blind', they go all the way thru the cylinder and and so the seized bolts can be easily drilled out when you remove the brake drum.

Overwise try;

shocking the bolts with a hammer blow,
molegrips
hammering in an oversized star or Allen socket
hammering on under sized normal socket
heat up with blow torch (watch out for brake fluid spurting out at high pressure and burning)

Rear cylinders on MK1 are almost consumables, changed loads becasue they have either seized solid or peed out gallons of brake fliud ruining the shoes.

If and when my glamorous asssitant arrives this afternoon I'll be joining you grappling with 20+ year old rear flexi due to a MOT advisory. :roll:

Agree with Early 1800 - buy new cylinders, then drill through the bolts of the old ones from the 'wrong' end (ie not the Allen key socket end). doesn't matter if you mess up the old cylinders - you're throwing them away. Just be careful not to spoil the bolt holes in the backplate.

As said heat does wonders, maybe an 'easy out' would work too if you can get a snug fitting one with the depth you've got, if you know what i mean.

rear flexi hoses …..aaarrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh…….

My glamorous assitant didn't trap so started on my own and after about 1/2 hour remembered why I didn't do this before when it was an advisory from last years MOT.

It is impossible to get at the flexi to solid brake line connection above the axle. Also in the small amount of movement that there is the metal pipe is turning with the threaded bit…. The one on the body to flexi came part in about 30sec.

Thinking I'm going to drop the axle to give some spanner wielding room, hoping it shouldn't be too bad as a garage had it off about 5 years ago to flush the tank.

Its one of these jobs where the longest way is actually the quickest.

Yeah I was wondering how you'd go about this, you seemed confident beforehand so didn't want to suggest anything. But yes, you need to remove the axle ideally to reach the bolts. (If you use oversize rear flexis, you can give yourself enough clearance to remove the fuel tank by removing the rear axle but leaving the brake lines connected, etc).

Yea, I remember it being a pig of a job when I restored the GTI, but that was 8 years ago and had the axle off to refurb it and to get the tank out, so poss I fastened the flexis on to axle whilst it was off the car :dontknow: .

I remember there being very little room because of the fuel pump, accumulator and hoses in the way on one side but I think the later cabrio tanks are bigger/different shape and take up more even room??

Early-1800 said

Yea, I remember it being a pig of a job when I restored the GTI, but that was 8 years ago and had the axle off to refurb it and to get the tank out, so poss I fastened the flexis on to axle whilst it was off the car :dontknow: .

I remember there being very little room because of the fuel pump, accumulator and hoses in the way on one side but I think the later cabrio tanks are bigger/different shape and take up more even room??

Its easy enough to unbolt and drop the fuel pump out the way while you're doing the brake lines.

Thanks guys.
Didn't read this before going out this morning but ended up doing as suggested; rear drum off, drill and crack off the cylinder. Finding new bolts was more of a hassle than smashing the old cylinder off (less enjoyable too! )