Below are pictures of a brake master cylinder from a 1998 ford crown victoria police interceptor with traction control. At the time that this master cylinder was removed due to a slow leak around the rear cup seals, the vehicle in question was around 12 years old.

Here's the master cylinder after disconnecting the brake lines and pulling it off the power brake booster.

The proportioning valve for the rear brake circuit is still attached to the brake pipe port.







The first thing I want to do is to disconnect the aluminum casting from the nylon reservoir.

The factory shop manual is rather vague about what tools to use. On another ford bendix master cylinder, I had tried using some flat prybars intended for residental home carpentry, but this left lots of tool marks on the reservoir.



Later, I found that a couple long 3/8" extension bars could be used as a pair of levers to seperate the two. Here's the procedure:
-Lay the master cylinder on the ground and hold it stationary with your shoe
-Insert the two extension bars in between the reservoir and the aluminum casting as shown
-Hold one extension bar stationary with your hand while you move the other in the opposite direction



After you pop out one port of the reservoir, the other will come out easily if you lift it at an angle with your hands



Here's the reservoir off the master cylinder entirely



There are some white colored stress areas on the reservoir, but it should be resuable on a remanufactured master cylinder that doesn't come with a new reservoir and requires you to reuse your old one.









Note that these 3/8" extension bars bend at odd angles because they are "wobble bars". I had these handy since they work much better than swivel universal joints for removing the nuts which hold the power brake booster to the firewall. They also work very nicely for removing the bolts which hold the engine starter motor to the transmission in the 1992-2002 crownvics.



Here are all the parts inside the master cylinder





Here is the side that the brake pipe ports connect to. The large diameter port on the right is where the rear brake proportioning valve would normally be connected. The port in the middle would normally have a cap in it to hold an internal spring loaded valve in the master cylinder. And the one on the left would normally connect to the front brake circuit.



One odd feature with this master cylinder is that there's a hollow area between the front & rear brake circuits with a valve inserted in it. This is needed to allow fluid to be returned to the master cylinder reservoir during traction control operation.

The 1992-1994 crownvics with traction control did not have this valve. But they had an additional brake fluid reservoir mounted on the antilock brake pump assembly. These vehicles actually had two brake fluid reservoirs in the car, one was mounted on the master cylinder, the other on top of the antilock brake pump assembly.



Here is the master cylinder with the valve moved a little bit



Here is the master cylinder with the valve removed, but the spring loaded cover installed



Here is the master cylinder from the top where the reservoir would normally be mounted



The raised area in the casting on this side is where to speed control deactivation switch for the cruise control system used to be mounted in the 1997 & earlier crownvics. In the 1998 and later cars, ford moved the deactivation switch to the brake pedal box inside the car so this area is no longer drilled and tapped on the later mastercylinders.



Here is the master cylinder with the spring loaded centering system for the valve removed



And here is the spring loaded centering system components



This is a closeup of one of the front reservoir port. Take note that one port seems what looks like a plug in it.



That thing that looked like a plug was really a metal rod to hold that went through the master cylinder to act as a piston stop.



Here are the primary and secondary pistons from inside the master cylinder



The piston on the right looks pretty normal. But the one on the left is an oddball with a hole cut through it.



Here is the piston with the stop rod that would normally be inserted when the pistons were inside the master cylinder



The stop piston stop rod normally passes through this hole





The bottom of that green colored piston looks a little odd too







Here's what's underneath the cover













Here are a few closeup pictures of the valve which is normally inserted between the two brake pipe ports on the master cylinder.



Notice how there are some moveable parts on this piston?





Here's how the valve would normally insert into the master cylinder





















The aluminum bore of the master cylinder had some scatches in it that were causing a small leak. Unfortunetly, the pictures don't show these defects too well.





Here's the side of the fluid reservoir. That black electrical connector is for the fluid level sensor. When the brake fluid level inside the reservoir gets really low, a magnetic float sinks to the bottom of the reservoir which then magnetically closes the switch to illuminate the brake warning light on your crownvic's dashboard. The 1992+ crownvics do not use a differential pressure combination valve anymore like you'll find in some of the older "box bodies".





Here is a closeup of the fluid level sensor removed from the reservoir



Here is the underside of the reservoir cap. If you look closely, you can see "BENDIX" stamped in.



Here is the top of the warning cap. Have you ever read the cap on your car? This one says: "WARNING CLEAN FILLER CAP BEFORE REMOVING. USE ONLY DOT3 BRAKE FLUID FROM A SEALED CONTAINER".



The cap can be seperated from the epdm rubber seal inside. This is a vented cap, and the rubber seal has a small hole cut in the middle.



Here is the lock-ring which normally holds the pistons inside the master cylinder bore.





Here is the piston which normally controls the rear brake circuit



And the piston with the spring removed.



When the piston is assembled, the screw can be turned to recalibrate the spring tension. This screw is not fully "bottomed out" from the factory.



Here are the two rubber seals which hold the nylon brake fluid reservoir in the aluminum master cylinder. Ford has been using the same seals on bendix master cylinder since the 1980's when the cast iron master cylinder were replaced with aluminum ones.



Some information about the traction control system operation is contained in patent 5522651 and patent 5741049 that kelsey hayes filed about the proportioning valve associated with this master cylinder.

Do note that proportioning valves were eliminated all together when ford changed over to the bosch 5.3 abs setup with electronic brake distribution (EBD) in the 2001 model year. The previous crownvics used an ate teves mark iv abs setup (1992-1997) or an ate teves mk20 abs setup (1998-2000) instead.

Also note that some 1996-2000 crownvic owners with traction control have changed over to the proportioning valve setup used in the 1995 cars with traction control. This setup is more compact horizontally so that the later police interceptor air intake zip tube can be installed. Here's a picture of the master cylinder & proportioning valve setup that was unique to the 1995 traction control cars:



This setup does take up more space vertically, but there's plenty of unused space underneath the master cylinder. It's just the huge proportioning valve that sticks out horizontally that prohibits the installation of the later high flow zip tube.

That electrical part hanging off the bottom of the proportioning valve is a redundant brake pressure sensor (deac switch) for the cruise control, it is not a differential valve to illuminate the brake warning light on your car's instrument panel. You do not need this sensor on the 1998-2000 crownvics because the deac switch is located on the brake pedal box inside the car rather than under the hood in the brake hydraulic circuitry like in the 1992-1997 cars.