OK, so my wife got me a very nice 3 point strut bar while she was in japan, I'm not exactly sure who makes this one, but I've seen the same strut bar labeled as autoexe, carbing and autocraft, not sure which one actually makes it. i did a test fit today to see what it looked like and i realized that it hits the brake master cylinder fill cap... in the pictures the bar isn't all the way down, when it is tightened down it is about half way down the threads of the bottle. I'd rather not cut into the bar, to make it fit perfectly I'd have to remove a little more then 1/4" or so and that's a lot. but if i can somehow turn around the fluid bottle so that the cap is towards the rear of the car then it would fit fine, maybe cut off the top of it, turn it around and epoxy it back on backwards?

throw your ideas at me, I'm not too sure what to do for this

thanks, kyle.

 

anyone?

 

Very nice present that your wife got you, but unfortunately it's made for a RHD/JDM car that has the master cylinder on the other side of the engine bay. As you discovered it won't bolt on as-is, some custom fabrication will be required.

 

the issue is that the unit was made for JDM right hand drive. the little difference is making it hit certain parts of the USDM model. you might want to see if you can run some spacers or washers on the under side of the strut plate to raise it a bit.

Good luck.

 

yea, i know why its hitting, brakes are on the other side in japan. but if i can somehow move the cap on the master cylinder then it would fit just fine without any spacers or anything. i was thinking that i could cut the top off of the bottle and turn it around so that the cap is in the rear then everything would bolt together just fine, but but don't want anything to happen to my brakes, that would be bad. so is this a bad idea? I'd probably use plastic weld epoxy to gule it back together.

 

can you pop the resevoir off of the MC and flip it around? it's only held in place with o-rings at the bottom, might make a mess though...recommend draining it before attempting that.

 

not sure if i can or not, i know that there is a hose that hooks up to it, i didn't look at it too hard today, had to help the wife with turkey dinner. it'd be nice if it was that easy, nothing ever seems that easy with these cars, lol. I'll give it a real good look over tomorrow and see if any more ideas pop up. and of coarse I'll drain the fluid first, i wont be installing this bar for a week or two, I'm installing my new coilovers and doing a full brake job when everything gets here so I'll pull the bottle when i bleed out the fluid.

 

I understand what you are saying about flipping it around. I think this would be possible.

I would drain you're system and evacuate all the brake fluid. Get a dremel and cut the top off. Just the top lid part though. Do not cut half way down. Just underneath the edge where the top connects to the sides. Then flip it around. Tape one side of it. Get a soldering gun and melt the plastic back together. Do one side at a time. Then I would coat the edge you just soldered/plastic welded together with ABS Cement.

Only thing that sounds iffy to me is that I'm not sure how much pressure is in the brake system so you're plastic weld job might not hold. You might try pressure testing the bottle once you're done getting it all back together.

Or you might try just shaving some plastic off the filler cap. It doesn't look like it's rubbing too much. Maybe just shaving a few mm would do the trick.

 

I can plastic weld. but u will need a doner tank. and it will not look 100% stock. but it will work. I wll look at mine today to make sure im not blowin smoke.

 

DMoneyRX-7 - shaving some of the cap off wont work, even with the cap off, the bar still hits the threads and pushes the bottle to the side a couple mm or so, i need about 5 or 6 mm more room and there isn't that much plastic to cut away.

bikojohn - I'll keep your plastic welding skills in mind if i need it. thanks!

well i looked at it real good today. turning the whole bottle around doesn't look like it'll work, too many things move around that shouldn't. but it looks like cutting the top off around the seam and putting the top on backwards wont be too bad. but this makes me wonder, did mazda put the cap in the front for a reason? does pressurized fluid come up in the and having the cap in the rear might be bad? well i'll probably order another bottle or grab one from a junk yard if i can find one and mess around with it and see what i can come up with.

tanks for the ideas guys, we'll get this bar on one way or another, lol.

 

Just a though.. I know you don't want to do this.. But what about a couple of washers under it??? would that hold it up high enough to tighten it down and work and not hit the bottle?

 

[QUOTE=well i looked at it real good today. turning the whole bottle around doesn't look like it'll work, too many things move around that shouldn't. but it looks like cutting the top off around the seam and putting the top on backwards wont be too bad. but this makes me wonder, did mazda put the cap in the front for a reason? does pressurized fluid come up in the and having the cap in the rear might be bad? well i'll probably order another bottle or grab one from a junk yard if i can find one and mess around with it and see what i can come up with.

tanks for the ideas guys, we'll get this bar on one way or another, lol.[/QUOTE]


As far as fluid coming out at the other end...vs the cap. I don't think it would matter. On your other GM trucks and cars they had the plastic cap and poppped on that covered the whole tank. Know what style I'm talking about?

 

yea, i know what style your talking about, my roommate has an old chevy truck, we did his brakes and found out the hard way that fluid sprays up when you push the pedal, lol.

i could probably put washers/a spacer under it, i'll have to go look at that. couple problems that i can see with that tho, 1. might raise it too much and it'll hit the hood 2. i'll have to drill the holes on the firewall a little off strait and there's no turning back there, this thing is pretty permanent since it mounts there. 3. after raising one side it'll twist/bend the bar a little and it might crack after a while or something. but i'll take a look at it tomorrow and see how much it needs to move to make clearance.

 

FYI, the bar you have is RE Amemiya and im not sure how identical it is to the Carbing unit, they look very close...so we just need to see if others out there that have these types of bars on the USDM cars can tell us what they had to do to make it work!!!

 

How about a nice relocation job, Get a small alloy tank and relocate it. Very easy to do. Rix

 

ok, so i messed around with it some today, washers/spacer wont work, to give me enough room so that the bar is just barely resting on the top of the brake cap i'd need about a half an inch, and if i move it up that much, it'll hit the hood. so spacers dont look like they'll work too well. right now it looks like the easiest and best thing to do is try cutting off the top, turning it around and gluing it back on with the cap to the rear. that'll give about 2mm of clearance between the top of the bottle and the bar and give enough room around the cap to easily open it up for bleeding/adding fluid/whatever. i took some better pictures to show how much room i have around the cap too.

i also found out today that the hook on the back of the UIM needs to be removed to put the bar on, pretty easy fix tho.

 

almost forgot, does anyone know if i need a specific kind of glue when working with brake fluid? i have some plastic weld 2 pt. epoxy, it would suck if the brake fluid ate through the glue.

 

My guess is that the tank is made out of polypropylene. Iv bin running poypro acid waste pipe for 20+ years and ther is no glue or epoxy that will work. so anyone know what plastic the tank is made out of? or you need to know what plastic you are dealing with then get the right glue for that plastic and you wont need to worry about the break fluid=the break fluid wont eat the plastic then it will be ok with the right glue for that plastic.

 

makes sense. i'm going to the junk yard tomorrow and hopefully i'll find a tank for cheap to mess with, how would i go about finding out what kind of plastic its made of?