Another brake question for the pros

[Leester]

I will be installing rebuilt brake booster and new brake master cylinder soon. I have bench bled the master cylinder and at the moment the threaded holes for the brake lines are plugged. I expect there to be some leakage of brake fluid from the time I remove the plugs and can get the brake lines threaded into the holes - which I plan to do one at a time.

Other than massive amounts of plastic and towels etc etc, and working quickly are there any good tricks to minimizing (hopefully to zero to save my paint) the amount of brake fluid leakage. 

Thanks in advance.  Lee 

[wwheeler]

You might try taking one of the plugs out in the M. cylinder on the bench and see what happens. My guess is that there will not be much in the way of dripping out the fitting hole. There has to be some force to push the fluid out. The force could be gravity or pressure from the cylinder piston. If the cylinder piston is at rest, you can eliminate that. Not much in the way of gravity (head pressure) or a siphon effect if the reservoir is not on the cylinder. Just a thought.

[Pawel66]

Sorry, a stupid question from an amateur: if you plug the openings where the reservoir is fitted - why would fluid drop from the line fittings?

[Shvegel]

Rags and paper towels. A few minutes of exposure won’t hurt anything.  If you are at all concerned brake fluid rinses with water. You can always rinse it off afterward.

[Leester]

Many thanks to all. For Pawel66 - not a stupid question - actually a very intelligent answer and I just might try plugging the openings where the reservoir is filled. Then, Wallace's hunch is probably correct - with no pressure not much flow - even moreso with the reservoir connections to MC plugged.

And thanks to Shvegel, I will have lots of water handy to rinse if necessary.

Will give it a go sometime later this week and let all know how it worked out but with your help I am very confident it will be fine.

Lee

[Leester]

Just to close the loop on installing brake master cylinder. Perfect success with many thanks to Pat, Pawell66, and Wallace. Attached are some photos. I was probably in overkill mode but with Pawel66's suggestion I took a spare reservoir and discovered that a 3mm diameter tube fits perfectly in its openings. Vacuum tubing from a subsequent model filled those openings. I then installed the 3mm tubes into the reservoir with brake fluid, removed the plugs and screwed in the brake lines.  Can't imagine there was more than 5 drops of brake fluid total.

Thanks guys, you're the best!!

[Shvegel]

That is a great tip.  I really like it.