Sleeving Wheel Cylinders

[John R]

I have a couple of wheel cylinders I’d like to have sleeved. Whom do you recommend for this service, based on actual experience? Some use brass, others stainless steel - any advantage to one over the other?

[jimvette59]

In my opinion brass will react with cast iron. I would use stainless steel. JMHO.

[PeteVS]

White Post Restorations in Virginia heavily promotes their work sleeving brake cylinders. They're kind of pricey though. I had my Chevy wheel and master cylinders sleeved in brass by a less expensive outfit. The sleeving was nice, but I think that they had a 12 year old with an old Makita cordless drill drill out the bleed holes and they wound up egg shaped. I took a bolt, drilled a hole down the center in a lathe and used that as a guide to drill them a bit larger but round. I wasn't too happy about having to do that.

[John R]

My reason for asking for recommendations based on actual experience: Years ago, I had some wheel cylinders sleeved in stainless and the same 12 year old drilled the bleed holes all the way into the cylinder bore wall opposite the hole. I'm trying to avoid that this time around.

[Bluebell]

I would doubt the brass would react with the cast iron. For a start the sleeve needs to fitted with loctite or the like, or as can happen, the fluid can leak from the inlet/bleed hole, along the back of the sleeve. I have had this happen more than once, with cylinders reconditioned through a well recognized company.

[John R]

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Still looking for more experience and recommendations for sleeving. The possibility of what happened to Bluebell never entered my mind. What was that "well-recognized" company?

[Fred A]

As cheap as wheel cylinders can be, there are many more rewarding details in these old cars than exotic cylinder linings. Not like we're dealing with rare parts. Good Luck Fred A

[PeteVS]

Originally Posted by Fred A

As cheap as wheel cylinders can be, there are many more rewarding details in these old cars than exotic cylinder linings. Not like we're dealing with rare parts. Good Luck Fred A

Fred: For those of us without a stock of NOS cylinders, the choice is Chinese stuff or re-sleeving. The Chinese stuff is not without problems, such as the rear cylinders were the inlet port is drilled outside of where the piston is at rest or my situation where the hose ports were drilled out of position causing the front hoses to interfere with the tops of the king pins, and they weren't stainless steeved. (F1 brakes on "square" spindles)

[Bluebell]

John, you should be o.k. with any reputable business who is doing them commercially.
You do hear the horror stories, but when it compares to the good jobs done, the bad ones pale into insignificance. The ones I had fail, failed the day they were installed.(one pair on the brake rollers, at the testing station) I'm a New Zealander, and the company was a member of a national brake association. I think it was at the start of using stainless as a sleeving material. I don't know, but my gut feeling is that stainless doesn't wear as fast as a brass sleeve (which do last a long time anyhow)
Go for it.