Today I engaged in three hours of "creative destruction" and removed the canopy, cowling top, and header tank on my L-235 in order to gain access to the brake master cylinders  (What was Lance thinking???).  After measuring the pin-to-pin distance on the 1986 Matco MT-1 master cylinders, I called Matco Technical Support for guidance on replacements. The young man "Andy" with whom I spoke was absolutely fantastic - he knew everything about everything and told me I needed the MC-4A cylinders with the MCR-100K external reservoir kit. (The kit comes with 6' of tubing and the required fittings.) He told me the shaft on the MC-4A was slightly shorter to avoid the interference problem that us old guys remember from the 80s and 90s. The shaft was also 3/8" dia. rather than the 1/4" dia. on my old ones - sturdier to avoid bending. I also asked Andy about my choice to go with the heavy wall Nylaflow tubing and he said that was not a problem - some people are even using 1/8" O.D. brake lines these days. He said the maximum pressure his brakes would put out was around 450 PSIG so I'd be safe with either wall thickness of the Nylaflow. It's so unusual these days to find a customer support person who actually knows anything (or speaks English), so needless to say I am extremely pleased with Matco.

Can you believe that on the original L-200, the header tank wasn't removable???


Notice the date code is "8604" - the 4th month of 1986. Sheesh...