problem bleeding brakes after a fitting lwb axle

Hi all me and my brother have fitted a lwb series 3 front axle to his swb 1981 series 3 88 as the old one was damaged and we thought it would help with upgrading the brakes as they have 2 wheel cylinders instead of 1 on the old axle.

We have had a big problem bleeding them and the pedal needs severel pumps before it will go solid and brake.

I was wondering if this is because the old pedal box doesnt push enough brake fluid into the wheel cylenders as there is now two of them instead if one - will it need a different brake pedal box as well after the axle swap?

Any info would be great its doing our heads in lol.

Silly question, but are the shoes adjusted up correctly? if they arent then it takes a lot more fluid to push them up against the drums.
New shoes and properly adjusted shoes made a big difference on my 110

Master cylinder should be fine ....

Bleeding the TLS (Twin leading shoe) brakes CAN make a grown man weep whilst others seem to manage it without any issues .
Bleed nipple at the bottom was a bit of a faux par for Landrover IMHO as it can allow air to collect at the top cylinder .
Lock all the brake adjusters against the drums solid OR remove the drums and ratchet strap/cable tie the brake shoes so they are pressed tightly against the wheel cylinders and cannot move (Means that your push of the pedal expels the maximum amount of fluid without having to first push the shoes against the drums)
with the bleed nipple closed get a glamorous assistant to apply three sharp pumps of the pedal and hold the pedal down on the third ....crack the bleed nipple and allow fluid out till pedal hits floor THEN close the bleed nipple .

Repeat as necessary and bleed your way around the circuit nearest to master cylinder first furthest last .

Take two anadin and come back and see me in a fortnight ;-)

Other dodge is to remove the back plates and suspend them upside down with the cylinders clamped. On my rebuild I was considering replumbing them at 3 and 9 o'clock but left them original because I'm a masochist! I seem to remember their is a good reason for them being like that but I've forgotten what it is...

i'm pretty certain you'll also find that the lwb master cylinder is a different part number to the old 88" master cylinder with 10" SLS drums so i suspect it does actually shift a different amount of fluid

you have to have the bleed nipple at the top or air will trap, make a pipe up from flexi input connect into bottom cylinder and take outlet from bottom cylinder up to top and you will have no more problems

Thanks guys much appreciated! I'll try all of the above. I
Just need to give him a kick up the backside now to get him going on it again!

Just thought I would add my observations to this as I am about to try bleeding mine.
Having just replaced all the seals and lown out the cylinders with compressed air I can see that the actual fluid ingress points appear to be halfway up the cylinder, this theoretically means that both cylinders will be half full of air.

I suspect the best way to bleed them would be to have the shoes comperessing the pistons to reduce the voume to start with to try reduce the air first before trying the hard pumping method to see if the may expel any extra air. Its a LONG time since I last buggered around with LWB drum brakes !