replacing brake booster

[exdeath]

Leaking around the firewall both in the engine bay and the boot inside the car is wet and has a small dribble.

Anyhow, any tips to getting this done quickly? I'm thinking just purge the brake fluid and remove the master cyl and be done with it just make it easy, and flush and bleed the brake system with new fluid and kill two birds with one stone.

I don't see any way to move the master cyl back far enough to get the booster out without bending the lines too much, and there is a forth nut against the firewall that is impossible to get to with everything in the way anyway, from above or below.

Any tips? Or is removing the master cyl and doing a full brake bleed pretty much required?

 

[exdeath]

So naturally you bleed the system after you put it all back together, because once the pressure lines are in place it's hard to get to that bottom nut that holds the master cylinder to the booster. Hence the master cylinder goes on before the final step of bolting the lines back up.

I thought I had a defective unit, it wasn't bleeding at all after over an hour of pumping the brake and turning the wheel lock to lock.

If anyone else ends up doing this, some advice is to bleed the hydroboost without the master cylinder in the way. This will let you push the pedal to the floor and really work the booster mechinism over the full range of movement more than if you are pushing against the brakes. Once the master cylinder was off it only took about 4-5 full pumps before it properly puked half the reservoir out of the return line on each pedal return.

The manuals, inserts, and procedures for bleeding a hydroboost unit doesn't say anything about this. So again for future reference, install the lines and bleed the hydroboost before reattaching the master cylinder.