MTFCA Forum

It looks like the master cylinder for my disc brakes will not fit under the floorboards. What experience have others had with this situation?

The floorboards do not sit on the frame !

Here's how I solved the situation four years ago with no problems to date. I did not use the cap with the hose barb instead used the black cap. My master cylinder happened to sit low enough that the reservoir cap only interfered with the floor board maybe 3/8". I carefully measured and drilled a hole the size of the cap (2" +/-) in the floor board and then covered the hole with a square piece of tin (3" x 3"+/-)and tacked down the corners. The master cylinder assy. does sit slanted maybe 10deg. but works fine. Try measuring your fit with the reservoir cap instead of the one with the hose barb as shown in your picture. I hope this helps.

I just measured a 24 touring. The bottom of the board sits 2 1/2" above the top of the frame.

The floorboard does not sit right on the chassis. It sits above the chassis on the body. Once the body is on, you may discover you have room. Jim Patrick

got10carz wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 26, 2022 3:09 pm

I just measured a 24 touring. The bottom of the board sits 2 1/2" above the top of the frame.

26-7 bodies sit lower to the frame than 25 & earlier.

I knew the floorboards did not set on the frame. I had set the new floorboards in place in the body, and without measurements, it appeared there likely would not be room underneath for the cylinder. Meaningful measurements will be difficult. My post was meant to see if others had actually had problems with interference between the cylinder and floorboards.

The bottom of the floorboard on my '27 roadster is 1 1/4" above the top of the frame. If you cut an access hole in your floorboard to clear the cylinder and make a metal cover for the hole, that could give you around 2" + clearance. If you choose to do that, I'd leave plenty of clearance around the cylinder to allow for normal flex and vibration and permit wiping dust and debris off the cylinder prior to checking fluid level.

For my 27 Tudor, I had to use my router to cut a 3/8" relief in the floorboard to clear. If you have the original floor then you might want to cut a replacement and save the original. For earlier cars, the floorboards sit higher up and should not be an issue.

Add your body frame rails and mounting brackets in....

"Add your body frame rails and mounting brackets in...." ??

On my 26 Tudor with not original floorboards I shimmed the board up about 1/2 inch with scrap stock that I glued and screwed to the floorboard in several locations. The boards had a rabbit cut on the perimeter so they sat low. I may not have needed to go that high, but I didn't want to take a chance of interference with the master cylinder.

I installed a Birdhaven master cylinder kit in a Speedster. It came with a remote reservoir that solved a few problems.