By Court Nichols

I needed to replace the brake master cylinder on my '72 series III SWB. Unfortunately, it gave up in a rural area and I needed to come up with something to get it home. I hand braked it down to a junkyard, pulled the MC, and started looking around for something similar. I finally ended up pulling a MC from a '96 Ford Explorer and it bolted right into place with no modification. The only problem; the threads on the rover brake lines didn't fit the Ford MC. No problem. I cut the compression fittings from the Ford and with the help of a flaring tool, I put them on the rover's lines. The brake line OD on the rover was a perfect fit with the ID on the Ford compression fittings. I bled the system and have been driving on it for over a year now. I believe it gives better braking than the original, but it certainly works as well as it did before. It is at least available in any parts store at a very reasonable price (32.00 US at autozone). I hope this info can be useful to you.

Addendum 7/25/06

OK, my master cylinder crapped out so I opted to try the Ford explorer alternative (as per the OVLR FAQ pages). Here is what I know so far;

Don't buy a reman from NAPA as they do not come with a resivoir! Do buy used from a wrecker $50 looks like new. Upon install noted resivior fouls the vacuum fitting on the booster! Solution was to flip the booster so the fitting was at the bottom (Any thought on this??) point of contact for the piston is way farther in that the lucas unit, had to make a spacer .950" long from a piece of 7/16" rod (throttle linkage rod works!)

Other than this reuse the ford fittings and be sure to make a bubble flare.