Restoring Front Master Cylinder

if you are talking about the Clear plastic reservoir being all yellow with minute little hairline crack looking things all over it..... NO. That is caused from Ultraviolet sun rays and is irreversable other than replacement. Plastic only has a real lifetime of around ten years before getting brittle and starting to Morph into what you are seeing.

Shop ebay or Z1 enterprizes and try getting a new one.
The aluminum parts are reworkable though.

Yeah! thats what I thought too RAN429. However, discounting the small hair-line cracks which we can't fix, GChet & John68 have assured us they have something for us. So I'm waiting with baited breath, for my Christmes present! I believe in these guys!

Regardz.

Sorry I've been somewhat absent from the forums, it's amazing how chores build up when you're not looking.

I've heard good things about marine plastic restorer, which I think is made by 3M. I've never used it.

The other product recommended to me was Mother's plastic polish. I bought some just for the hell of it to see how it would affect 28-year-old plastic, and it did wonders on the master cylinder (black) and the plastic over the gauges (clear). Unfortunately my digital camera is in Colorado with the girlfriend until the end of the month. Of course, if it weren't, I wouldn't have had time to pull the SR into the garage bay to play with the polish!

At any rate, the master cylinder looks GOOD where I did a test application, although unfortunately with the raised lettering it would take some serious work to get down into all of the cracks between letters. It didn't harm the remaining paint on the lettering.

It didn't do quite as well on the hazard light button, which is a really hazy pink color. After I put the stuff on and worked it in for a few seconds the button was much closer to red. It matches the underside of the button, which presumably hasn't seen nearly as much sunlight. After an hour or so the color had started to fade, which makes me think that if it's to have any permanent effect it'll take some serious working with a polishing cloth or maybe even a powerball or buffer (go slowly!) to really get results on colored plastics.

I've seen good work done to old plastic. It's something I've never had opportunity to do myself. That's why I was hoping that someone would walk into a paint shop and ask, or that someone with a little more solid knowledge than my modest hearsay provides could come forth with more details.

The Mother's is good, and should work on your master cylinder. If you're looking from the "looks cherry from 5' away" effect, it'll take you just a few minutes. If you want it to stand up to close inspection, you'll need to take some time around the raised lettering.

If nobody takes me up on the "walk into a paint shop" advice, I'll do it myself after the holidays and try to find out what the pros use.

I've used it, it works wonders. It's worth the $10 or if you don't want to spend money on new parts. I bought it to use on the plastic headlight lenses on my old car which were yellowing horribly. I used this stuff according to the directions and they looked brand new when I was done. I never even thought to use it on my yellowed master cylinder reservoir, but I'm going to try it when I get home.

I also used it on my friend's instrument cluster lense in his Grand Am, which was extremely cloudy. It made it look brand new, and he was quite impressed. My suggestion is to buy some of this stuff and try it before replacing it.

exactly how do they work. are they abrasives or do they just fill cracks

I'm pretty sure this one is abrasive. To describe the texture, it feels like orange hand cleaner with pumice, only a bit more gentle.