Serenity

My Jeep (1994 xj country 4x4) has gone through 4 brake cylinders in 2 years and I have no clue why. Has anyone else come across this issue? Any suggestions? I don't do any hard core offroading or anything like that. Any help or advice would be much appreciated. This is my dd and everytime this happens I am SOL for a few days lol

peep

Are we talking Master Cylinder under hood or Rear Brake Cylinders?
Either way the quality of aftermarket parts has been in general decline.
An effect felt globally when the world started sourcing everything from a location of dollar store content and capitalist margin, but I'm off topic and that's another story.
When purchasing these cylinders you often have a choice, good, better, best, or remanufactured vs new and price here normally assimilates quality of content. Have you selected the item of better or best content? Any additional data upon the details or symptoms of the cylinder failures ie: no pressure, seals leakage, seize up, cracks, etc??

cruiser54

Ever completely flush out the old brake fluid?

rompnXJ

If you're talking about wheel cylinders, swap to discs and be done with it.
If you're talking about master cylinders, change your brake fluid !!! Contaminated fluid kills master cylinders quickly.

cruiser54

One of the most overlooked maintenance items is flushing the brake fluid. Every 30,000 miles.

Serenity

Sorry for late reply guys. Thanks for the feedback. It is the wheel cylinder at the wheels. I have never done a brake flush before, but seeing how I've gone through 4 wheel cylinders and about a dozen bottles of brake fluid, I think I have that part covered lol

As for other issues with my brakes, I've had none. I take fairly good care of my truck as it is my DD. When I do repair it, I always go with the middle value products.

I've thought about doing the disc brake swap, but I've read a few times of people having trouble finding the right length hand brake cable that works for their truck. I have the 5 speed manual, so I definitely need my hand brake. If anyone knows of a place that can get the hand brake cables that are the proper size, I would definitely consider changing to discs.

Radi

How are the cylinders failing? Seal leaks? Seizing up?

Not to be simplistic, but if the rear brakes aren't adjusted correctly it is possible the cylinders are over-extending, which could blow the pistons and seals out of the bores.

cruiser54

Correctomundo.