Fitting stainless steel Brakelines

When I did this on my 328 a couple of months ago I attached a bleed hose on one wheel, opened the nipple & then pushed the brake pedal about half way down & then held it there with a piece of wood propped against the front of the driver's seat (use a towel against the seat so as not to mark the leather).

What this does it it moves the master cylinder piston into a position that prevents fluid from leaking out the reservoir when you remove the flexible lines. Worked very well & got almost no spillage.

Couple of other tips:

1) Check the new lines are the right length before you start disassembling anything. Sounds obvious but worth doing (don't ask me how I know!!)

2) Be very careful when you try & disconnect the existing flexible lines from the solid lines - you can twist/bend/crush the solid line if its siezed on so keep watching it as you apply force & use an open ended wrench on each side & liberal amounts of penetrating oil. If the fitting is stuck onto the solid line all you can do is kind of rock it back & forth until it releases - it is kinda scary to watch your brake pipe twisting!

3) Apply a tiny smear of anti-seize/copper grease on alll the threads before you put things back together - not too much, you don't want any in the braking system. Also put some around the fittings on the end of the solid lines - between the pipe & the fitting so that the fitting won't corrode on to the pipe.

4) Cleanup & sort out the brackets where the flexible line meets the solid line - mine were corroded & didn't make life easy. You'll see what I mean when you get in there. I put some rust cure on them & then a dab of paint & then used some grease around the fitting where it mounts into the bracket to protect it a bit.

5) When re-assembling you'll need to put the caliper end of the hose in first!

6) Be ultra careful not to cross any threads. Go carefully & use the "anticlockwise trick" to start the thread - assuming it was a nut & bolt, basically you you stick the nut on the end of the bolt & then turn it slowly anticlockwise until you feel it jump/click - at which point you've found the start of the thread & you can begin to tighten it up.

You'll probably find the rears are more difficult to undo than the fronts - the right side of the 328 was a pig & nicely siezed up - but then the union of where the solid pipe meets the flexible is very close to the exhaust.

Other than that, once you have the new lines on then do a full brake bleed. I would allow the fluid to find its way out by gravity first & then start pumping the pedal/using a power bleeder & follow the std procedure. I would do it twice just to be sure

Good time to be changing your fluid anyway & inspecting & overhauling the calipers as needed as well.

Rgds

Iain

 

Yeah,
What he ^^ said. Iann, very good install tips. I just did my lines a few months ago and your write up was like deja vu. Some of the lines are hard to access the fittings. Be patient and use line wrenches to remove/loosen the old lines. Open end wrenches can strip the brake fitting nut and then it's hacksaw time and running new hard lines. Spray them with penetrating oil, use line wrenches, and be careful.

John

 

water pump sorted, scotty ?

just to add to the above .... spray penetrant liberally each day, for a few days before you start.
and again, make sure the "insides" are scrupulously clean upon reassembly.
cheers, d

 

If this thread is pertaining to stainless steel braided brake hoses -- as opposed to stainless steel hard brake lines -- you might want to take a look at the experiences of others before you decide you've just got to have them:

http://www.jag-lovers.org/xj-s/book/SSBrakeHoses.html

BTW, if we *are* talking about stainless steel hard brake lines, I believe they are illegal in the US. Something about fatigue cracking or the like. Anyone familiar with materials science knows you should be able to make perfectly good SS hard brake lines by choosing a type of SS with the correct physical properties, but apparently the DOT has reacted to somebody that used the wrong alloy of SS in making brake lines and simply prohibited the whole idea.

 

Kirbert,
If you read the thread, you would see they are talking about the flexible lines, not the fixed ones.

Seen the argument, and remain unconvinced. I have never seen an installation that required any sort of "adapter" so that may be a Jag thing. Each car I have had them installed in made a nice improvement in pedal feel, with the exception of a very newish BMW. With these lines I never have to worry about them getting soft again. BTW, all the lines I use are DOT approved and have the extra plastic jacket over the ss braiding to prevent chafing.

 

Davehanda gave me a set of Goodridge brakelines for my 355 as a present. I've spent 12 hours spread over 4 nites and a weekend day changing them including a trip to the autoparts store for special flare nut wrench. The flare nut wrench was a waste of time and money. The flare nuts on my '97 were so frozen it took all the force I could develop with the inside jaws of my vice grips together with the 17mm open end wrench to brake these things loose. I would estimate close to 100 foot pounds of torque (and that's after using liberal amounts of penetrating oil the night before. This is a dirty not- a fun job!.

I now have vice grip marks on every flare nut in the brake system except the ones next to the Calipers which came off easily.

I learned an access trick on the fronts which is to remove the two nuts holding the interface bracket on the back of the wheel hub. This way you only have to undo the flare nut at the body fitting and the flare nut on the Caliper installed on the car and you remove the entire assembly to gain access to the flare nut and hose fitting at the back of the wheel hub.

I also replaced the brake pads which were 1/3 worn (24K miles) with Porterfield R4S Racing Pads for street application. In doing this job, I bought speed bleeders but never needed to use them. I just had my wife sit in the car and pump the brakes with the ignition on. I did one wheel at a time and had no problem purging the air. What I noticed was that most of the early fluid to come out was relative cloudy and with a light brown tinge. This tells me whether you put the steel lines in your F355 or not, its a good idea to flush the brake fluid out when you get the chance. Besides the modern synthetic brake fluids are bound to be better than what Ferrari put in at the factory. I ran 4 quarts of DOT 3 and 4 through my system just to make sure I rinsed all the corrosion out.

If you don't service your car yourself, it would be a good idea to make sure a good flush with 4 quarts of new synthetic brake fluid is part of the statement of work for your 30K.

 

Speaking of stainless brake lines, anyone ever heard of these for Dinos? During the rebuild (early L-series car) 3 yrs ago, I thought stainless lines to replace the nasty stock ones would be a good idea, but could not locate same, and was told by the shop that these could not be custom made because no supplier he knew of would assume the liability for them?

 

Goodridge makes them for the 246 dino.
Go to www.demon-tweeks.co.uk

 

I've done this myself on my old 308, and just recently on my 328. Kind of a messy job and not terribly fun, but an important one.

When I did the 308, I typed up this procedure. It will at least give you an idea of what tools to use. I do recommend investing in a set of metric flare wrenches.

MS Word document attached.

--Mike
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A well established alyernative to steel piping is 'Kunifer' cupro-nickel alloy. This is corrossion resistant and much easier to bend that stainless piping. There are plenty of references on the search engines and one is http://www.yourcarparts.co.uk/trolleyed/178/237/sub_1.htm. You can also get Kunifer fittings, which should be a lot easier to unscrew later, should this be necessary.

John

 

MrI......... I basically went thru the same deal on my Pantera.......what I found helpfull was to also "flush" the system using ATE's SuperBlue, working farthest to closest (to the master cyl), and this way when you see nice dark blue fluid you know that section is flushed.

I also happened to use a Motive power system (basically looks like a bug sprayer with a pressure gauge).

good luck!

 

.......oh yea........ I also put on those Porterfields (R4S)........outstainding pads!!

 

I think most of you missed the fact that using line wrenches rounded off all four courners of the tube nuts not just two from an open end wrench. LINE WRENCHES ROUNDED THE CORNERS OF MY TUBE FLARE NUTS WHEN I GOT TO 50 FOOT POUNDS. IT TOOK 100 FT- LBS AND MY VICE GRIPS TO BREAK THEM FREE WITH LIBERAL AMOUNTS OF PENETRATING OIL. Line wrenches did more damage to the flare nuts than the vice grips when squeezed tight enough so the did not slip. I found it took about 100 pounds of grip pressure on the vice grips to ensure they did not slip.

 

Aero you must have had a very corroded flare nuts. I just did my 77 308 and it took me most of the day working at a casual pase. Biggest problem was getting at the front inner line connections. These were tight but I sprayed everything up with PB Blaster and let it soak for a while. Now considering this was the 1st time that these brake hoses came off since new I did not have to much trouble. As for the flare wrenches this is the only way to go at least for breaking them loose. Also because I don't use my car in the wet it may also make them easier to remove. Enjoy the ride

 

Scott,
You may find some tips here:


http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=78309

Mike