BMW 633 Brakes: Our Shed

By: Guy Allen, Photography by: Guy Allen

Date: 15.02.2016

Getting the air out of your brake lines should be easy, shouldn't it?

BMW 633

Really, you would not think it was that difficult, fixing a set of brakes, I mean. My cheap and cheerful 1976 633 Bimmer has had pretty much the lot done in this department. Including being bled, three times.

I like a quick thrill as much as the next person, but split-personality brakes is not on the recommended list.

In the end I blundered into Glenlyon Motors, the folk currently building Project Torana for us, with something resembling an intervention order.

Ringmaster Mick got the thing up on the hoist and, not surprisingly, found air in the lines. The crew duly pumped and bled the things, got a decent pedal, only to have it go off again.

Some rooting around in the engine bay revealed the reason. This thing has two master cylinders – one where you’d expect it, just above the pedal box, and the other hidden out of sight under a nest of cables and fluid lines, forward of the vacuum booster. It was the second which was the culprit.

Once it was all pumped and bled, for the umpteenth time, it got a decent pedal and kept it. Voila! Now we know the trick, we’ll be ready for it next time around.

Don’t you just love it when the problem really does turn out to be fairly simple?

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