Author Topic: Brake lines and hoses  (Read 6822 times)

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Offline Adam

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Brake lines and hoses
« on: May 14, 2005, 11:23:52 PM »
Not that there appears to be anything "wrong" with mine but they are pretty old and now off the car so was thinking of getting some braided brake hoses. I hear they give a better brake pedal feel, is there a place to buy them or is making your own the way to go?

On the seperate subject of the metal brake lines- I'll probably need to change mine because my front crossmemeber is a bit defferent now. Is theres some sort of semi-flexible solution or do they need to be custom made? I assume anyone with a mirror conversion would have had this issue come up, so im sorry if its an obvious answer...

thanks!

adam
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Offline Vette Obsessed

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Brake lines and hoses
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2005, 03:54:16 AM »
Best to buy them from what I understand.  For them to last (and be legal) I understand they need to have teflon ends which are less likely to break at the end (hardly what you want to happen to your brake hoses...).

My reading about what made the ends of the road legal ones different was too long ago to recall the specifics.  Plus its late and I'm not too sharp on my recollection right now...;36

Custom making new hard lines would probably be no harder than mucking around with flexible inserts in sections (and would probably be more reliable/durable) by my reckoning...
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Offline GAS.455

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Brake lines and hoses
« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2005, 05:15:40 PM »
I spoke to a few brake places when I was doing the custom setup on my '60 Pontiac....THey all bend the tubes by hand...what I did...buy the metal brake line from them....and then I bent the line to shape at home...cut to length using a small pipe cutter(I think I even bought it from Super Cheap Auto)...then took the lines upto the brake place and got them to Double Flare the line ends...then I took it home and fitted it...it cost me bugger all....wasn't hard..

Just make sure that you secure the brake line to the chassis properly so it doesn't rub at all anywhere...and use rubber grommets when going through metal....

That was the only mistake that I made...not securing the lines properly...they rubbed and wore a hole in the pipe and then failed...but that has been fixed and properly secured....

Greg
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MJ355

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Brake lines and hoses
« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2005, 08:46:09 PM »
my uncles make braided and stainlees steel brake lines if u want some done let me know and ill get some prices for u

Offline Cameron 77C3

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Brake lines and hoses
« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2005, 11:53:30 PM »
You can get a softer pedal with flexiable lines and if your getting engineer certificates, some but not all, engineers don't like flexiable lines.  Thats what I've found during the brake mods I did on my beast.  Not gospil.
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Offline TIPPA

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Brake lines and hoses
« Reply #5 on: June 10, 2005, 04:25:37 PM »
GAS.455 is right- it's pretty straight forward making up rigid brake lines. i bought a flaring tool aswell as used to make brake lines for small aircraft. if you flare it right and it doesn't leak during the first bleed then you can be confident it will be trouble free for years. i'd recommend using rigid lines as much as possible and flex lines only where needed ie one at each corner. i just replaced my vette's flex lines as they had swollen and restricted the flow internally so led to uneven braking. i used std ones thru Classic Chev. Braided lines look great (if you can see them!) and due to less expansion under pressure give a slightly firmer pedal but as VO said, they have to be made by an approved manufacturer. Guys at Ansett, when i worked there, had the hose shop make them braided lines for their cars and although they were made to handle 3,000psi and tested to 5,000psi they were defected...

Offline Cameron 77C3

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Brake lines and hoses
« Reply #6 on: June 10, 2005, 09:05:56 PM »
Pirtek at Milpera are licienced to do flexiable lines.  But only the Milpera store.
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