Repro Girling Brake Reservoirs

[Ian Vincent]

A couple of years ago I replaced my old but original brake reservoir because I was worried about it starting to leak. When I rebuilt the car I refurbished the original reservoir but it had quite a lot of rusting on the side that had reduced it to 'paper' thickness in places.

 

The new repro reservoir started 'out of the blue' to leak a month or so ago just as we were about to move house and I have only just got around to removing it to fix the leak.

 

I turns out that whereas the old reservoir was sealed by flat aluminium washers that were clamped firmly against the bottom of the can by the outlet unions, the new cans have an arrangement involving a nylon insert to the fitting attached to the bottom of the can and it was this insert/fitting that has given up the ghost. A quick search of the internet revealed that this is not an uncommon problem and on a Cobra Forum it said the solution was to use a product called Seal-All to seal the joint. Apparently it is resistant to everything including brake fluid.

 

So I have some on order, hopefully to arrive tomorrow but in the meantime if you have a repro Girling reservoir be prepared for it to start to weep from the unions at the base. Another case of newer technology not always being better.

 

Rgds Ian

[stuart]

The originals actually had a pair of rubber washers under the ally ones and this is what used to give up and what the black sludge in the bottom was made of.

Stuart.