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I have a question for you guys with hydraulic brakes. I recently filled my master cylinder with fluid and bled the brakes for the first time. I have the sport trainer (center flap and brake lever) control setup. With the brakes bled, there is little movement in the lever on the master cylinder before there is heavy resistance. Therefore, I get no where even close to the full brake lever travel to the parking brake position. I am struggling with a fix for this. I assume that the throw on the master cylinder is correct? The problem with center controls and a hand brake is there aren't enough hands to do an engine run up without having the parking brake position. So, I'm wondering what you guys do or have you run in to this same problem and if so, what is your solution?

I used this: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/l ... key=449181

Leading Edge Airfoils ----Has one that I use for about $ 48----It is a push button type--

saddler wrote:I have a question for you guys with hydraulic brakes. I recently filled my master cylinder with fluid and bled the brakes for the first time. I have the sport trainer (center flap and brake lever) control setup. With the brakes bled, there is little movement in the lever on the master cylinder before there is heavy resistance. Therefore, I get no where even close to the full brake lever travel to the parking brake position. I am struggling with a fix for this. I assume that the throw on the master cylinder is correct? The problem with center controls and a hand brake is there aren't enough hands to do an engine run up without having the parking brake position. So, I'm wondering what you guys do or have you run in to this same problem and if so, what is your solution?

I had to make a new brake handle with a bend in it to compensate for the lack of travel. I found that trying to get the two holes in the new handle to be in just the right location for the handle to work as a parking brake, was nearly impossible. So I made the lower hole round, and elongated the upper hole slightly. The elongation allowed me to adjust the handle position. I then tightened the heck out of the nuts/bolts to hold it in that location. So far so good.

If you go here you'll see a couple of iterations. http://www.mykitlog.com/users/category. ... egory=7396

Interesting that you just mentioned the Matco parking brake valve. I have used that on my toe pedal operated hydraulic brakes from day one, and it works, but just yesterday remounted it so that it was near vertical orientation, in from cylinders at top and out to brakes at bottom. Now can fill brakes from bottom up without having to remove and tilt that valve to get trapped air out of it, Now a 10 minute one man job to bleed and top up brakes where it used to take two people and about an hour. Note: On my system, (GP brakes, Heyco cylinders) pumping in fluid from bottom is the only way that works, The bleed screws leak around the threads and let in air if any of the suction type bleeders are used. When filling from bottom, I jam a piece of plastic tube over end of the cylinder bleeder screw and run that into catch bottle.

David A.