How To Fit A Tazu Clutch Master Cylinder

[rich17865]

After ordering my TAZU Clutch master cylinder, and it's prompt arrival I straight away decided that I did not like the supplied copper pipe for connecting it up and ordered myself a custom flexi.

I used www.customhoses.co.uk The made to measure hose measured 850mm in length and had a straight M10x1.0 swivel male fitting on each end. I chose black as the hose colour, but many are available. It cost only £19.95 and was delivered next day. It is a stainless braided hose so I could rest assured it wasn't going to balloon up over time and become useless. More on the hose later.

First things first, remember I did this on my 1.8 which has ample under bonnet room, your V6 or diesel may not have such easy access.

I removed the air filter housing and the hose connecting it to the inlet manifold.


Then identified the push fit connector which connects the master cylinder and slave cylinder.


You need to disconnect the hose connector, you do this by releasing the clear plastic collar that is in the middle of the fitting. You need to push the collar in evenly all the way around towards the slave side of the connector and the master side will pop out. There is a special tool for this, but I used needle nosed pliers with complete success.


With the connector undone, you need to remove the failed master cylinder in the footwell.

Remove the two screws at the bottom of the panel below the steering wheel.



Then looking up at the pedals, remove the two plastic trim clips that secure the pedal box cover. These unscrew to remove, and push back on to refit.



Then remove the pedal box cover.


You can then remove the lower dash panel buy pulling away from the dash releasing the spring clips.


You will then be able to see the clutch master cylinder.


You will need to remove the spring clip that secures the cylinder piston to the clutch pedal.



With the piston free of the pedal, remove the two bolts that fix the master cylinder to the pedal box. The bolt heads require an 8mm socket.


With some wiggling you can remove the old master cylinder through the cabin with the hose attached.

I had already fitted the push fit connector to the flexi hose and connected this to the slave.


I then fed the hose through the bulkhead and refitted the bulkhead grommets.

I did not photograph this stage, but I used my Eezibleed to fill the master and bleed the slave before trying to fit the new master cylinder. I ran fluid through the slave until it ran clear and had no bubbles. The bleed nipple is found here.


This is where I had trouble. The TAZU master cylinder outlet is not really suited to right hand drive models and the outlet from the master doesn't line up with the hole at all. If I had known this, I could have ordered my flexi hose with a small bend on one end that would have made fitting it much much easier as it would not have been tight up against the bulkhead. Here are some comparisons of the original part and the TAZU part side by side so you can see the issue.





I cut away some of the sound deadening material around the hole in the bulkhead to ease fitting.

You need to manipulate the flexi from the master cylinder which points down then spiral it back up so it goes through the original grommet and hole. You can see in the pictures that my hose is very, very tight and close to kinking. A bend at the master cylinder end of the hose would alleviate this. You can specify the bend on the website I used for making the hose. What degree of bend is best I don't know, but straight is not great. The 850mm of hose gave just the right amount of hose to do the spiral without kinking.

Here are some photos of how mine is fitted, it takes patience to get it to fit, but it will go in.









Once fitted, you can reuse the original hose clip under the bonnet.


This does work out cheaper than sourcing an aftermarket part, the cheapest I could find one was £105 delivered. Subscribed members get 15% off the TAZU master, making the master and the flexi just below £90. It is a bit of a faff to fit in comparison to the original part, but should long outlast it, and replacement seals are available for the TAZU one which is a bonus.

If my hose does fail because of the bend against the bulkhead, I will replace it with one that has a manufactured bend at the master end and post my findings up accordingly.

EDIT:

Still not having fitted the replacement hose that I had ordered, it has come to my attention (thanks to billy1mate) that a better hose configuration exists.

If you build you hose with the following specification,

Fitting 1: M10x1mm, straight, swivel male
Fitting 2: M10x1mm, 70 degrees, swivel male
Hose length 880mm

Your fitted hose will look like this,




Disclaimer:
You are responsible for any work or modifications carried out on your car and you undertake any such work at your own risk.
The 75 and ZT Owners Club nor the original author of this How-To can be held liable for anything that may happen as a result
of you following this How-To.

[Mark2000cc]

Just looking at your pedal cover rich, that liquid on the sponge, please tell me that's not clutch fluid!? I suspect it is hence you replacing the master, i also have this :-(

[rich17865]

Originally Posted by Mark2000cc

Just looking at your pedal cover rich, that liquid on the sponge, please tell me that's not clutch fluid!? I suspect it is hence you replacing the master, i also have this :-(

That it is

[Mark2000cc]

Oh dear lol
I was clinging on to the hope of it being wd40 that I sprayed up there to cure a squeeky clutch pedal!

[MG Tom]

That is a fantastic write up, thank you very much indeed.

Please could you have a stab at what flexi angle would be best to specify, the pics are good but still a bit tricky to work out exactly what is required.

Many thanks. :

EDIT - it looks like 20, 45, 70 or 90 degrees are the options. From the footwell pics, 90deg might be best?

[rich17865]

Originally Posted by Mark2000cc

Oh dear lol
I was clinging on to the hope of it being wd40 that I sprayed up there to cure a squeeky clutch pedal!

It might be

[Mark2000cc]

Originally Posted by rich17865

It might be

I really hope so mate Great write up by the way...needs to be made a sticky

[rich17865]

Originally Posted by MG Tom

That is a fantastic write up, thank you very much indeed.

Please could you have a stab at what flexi angle would be best to specify, the pics are good but still a bit tricky to work out exactly what is required.

Many thanks. :

EDIT - it looks like 20, 45, 70 or 90 degrees are the options. From the footwell pics, 90deg might be best?

My only concern with the angled hoses is that if the shaped stainless pipe protudes too far, the master cylinder will not fit at all. 70 degrees should do it, 90 degrees will be pointing towards the drivers seat a bit I would have thought.

Also if you are going with an angled hose end, you might need an extra 50mm of hose as the spiral from the master cylinder would be larger.

If my hose fails I will replace it with an angled one, but I don't have any spare £20's lying about to get another made at the moment.

Take a look and decide for yourself.

[rich17865]

Originally Posted by Mark2000cc

I really hope so mate Great write up by the way...needs to be made a sticky

Thanks very much.

There are always too many stickies, perhaps a thread put in the how to section will suffice

[Mark2000cc]

Originally Posted by rich17865

Thanks very much.

There are always too many stickies, perhaps a thread put in the how to section will suffice

Or that lol...