Holy hell, how do you get the wheel cylinder bolts off? I'll tell you how I did...

So, in the quest to make myself a road-worthy, rolling, Jeep project I decided to redo the brakes on all four corners - and put in a new master cylinder.

But anyway, I'm replacing the wheel cylinders and there are two bolts that hold each one to the backing plate are recessed a bit and they are so close to the bleeder valve that I cannot get a socket on it. Because they are recessed just a bit I cannot get a wrench on them... I looked for a thin wall socket but found none locally. regular sockets just won't fit.

My solution was to remove the hub from the spindle, remove the backing plate, and use a Dremel tool to cut slots into the bolt heads. What a PITA. Is there some easier way that I have overlooked?

When I reassemble the wheel cylinders to the backing plate I am going to use socket head cap screws so that I can remove them with an Allen wrench if I should need to in the future.

It's probably a good thing I opened up the hubs... one was full of water and the other was full of nasty rust/grease mix. Are new wheel bearings called for? I think so.

 

Re: Holy hell, how do you get the wheel cylinder bolts off? I'll tell you how I did.

I usually remove the bleeder valve first then remove the bolts....