Some Good News at last!
The late XR2 Master Cylinders (smooth steel barrelled ones) are unavailable, as most of you will know.
And the repair kits available on eBay, etc are for the early, cast items and don't fit. BEWARE: There is one advert on there that is quite adamant that it does fit, but it doesn't - look at the contents. I bought one hoping it was the wrong photo, but it wasn't, so that was £15 wasted..!
The Good News: I have just identified a kit that does the job. It has the correct size piston seals, the reservoir seals (including the strange shaped rear one that the yellow plastic cover on the rear goes into), the O-ring for the yellow plastic cover and the seal for the back of the cover where the piston comes out. It even has the shims that sit behind the piston seals. In short, it's the complete kit!
As it's listed for a different car, I bought one to make sure it was the right thing, and successfully rebuilt the master cylinder on our white Saloon this weekend.
I need another one for my blue 2+2, and a spare, and, as they come from Germany, I have ordered a batch of 10 kits to save on p&p. If anyone is interested, just let me know and I will post you one. Even with postage, they should be less than £20 each.
(Although I did think it might be interesting to put one on eBay to see what an XR2 restorer would pay for it...!) ;-)
Obviously, they are only seal kits, so if the reservoir, plastic cover, bore or piston are U/S then they won't help, but if, like ours, it was just the seals leaking, then it's a whole lot easier than trying to find something similar, modifying the servo brackets/brake pipes, etc.
Well, I thought that it was good news, anyway! And that has to be worth something this year...
Dave.