Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.105] on Thursday, January 02, 2014 at 20:46:38 :
In Reply to: cast iron brake pistions posted by mannyc [173.77.217.68] on Thursday, January 02, 2014 at 19:51:19 :
Seems like a simple lathe project, easy to make out of any brass or bronze -- much easier than working stainless. I don't think there are any terribly tight tolerances involved. Making them out of cast iron would be easy if you happened to have some junk casting lying around with a big enough section in it to start with. A serious metal worker, like my great-uncle who built his own milling machine from scratch, would cast aluminum, brass, and bronze blanks out of scrap metal and then turn them to size.
That said, the corrosion of the aluminum pistons is probably just a result of many years of water in the brake system, so if the system was flushed thoroughly and the fluid changed every 5 years or so, corrosion probably wouldn't be a problem. I do like the idea of making my own pistons out of melted-down scrap bronze plumbing valves, but I probably won't be doing that any time soon.
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