Monday, April 16, 2007

Brake Lines

I've been cracking on with the Spitfire a lot recently and I'm not doing too badly! The new master cylinders (both from Wilwood) are in and new braided brake and clutch hoses are made up and fitted.

Fitting braided hoses between the clutch slave and master is a good idea because there is a lot of vibration between their mounting points. Its no better than normal brake pipe between the brake master and the union but it looks cool and can be removed more easily! It certainly isn't any worse!

Anyway, in order to do this to your own car all you need to do is follow these easy steps!
  1. Get hold of about 3 metres of Euroquip brake hose (Rally Design part number EURO600) and four 3/8 x 24 UNF convex brake hose ends (Rally Design part number RD1500). If you've got Wilwood masters then you need to get two of those and two of part number RD1504 and use them with the supplied adaptors.

  2. What you then do is measure the hose out and cut it at the correct length. I used a junior hacksaw with a fine blade for cutting and it was pretty straightforward. A good tip is to wrap the hose in tape and cut through it to keep the braid from fraying everywhere.

  3. Now take apart the end connectors. You will have three peices - the bit that screws into the union, a brass olive and female threaded finisher that attaches it all together.

  4. Push the finisher onto the hose (you'll kick yourself if you forget this stage when it's the second connector you're attaching!)

  5. Now you're aiming to gently ease back the braiding around the end of the hose just enough to persuade the olive to go on the hose. I found this was relatively easy if you grab the end of the hose with the olive on and push it hard into the workbench. Make sure the olive is on the end of the hose as far as it can go!

  6. Now insert the hose onto the back of the threaded peice and make sure its pushed on firmly.

  7. Now pull the finisher down the hose and use it to lock it all together. Shouldn't need to be mega stupidly tight but it does need to crush the olive and keep it all locked together.

  8. Repeat as many times as needed.

  9. Check for leaks!

So there we have it - quite an easy and satisfying job. Just watch for the sharp ends of the braid cutting your fingers up as they can be really sharp.


Other jobs I've done include refitting the front quater valance I removed and resprayed earlier along with it's light unit and stripping out most of the interior to get at the clutch slave cylinder which I now need to bleed. The brakes are now done apart from the master cylinder reservoir. I have bought a used girling cylinder from Ebay and will use the reservoir from that - an idea I got from Club Triumph forum user '2 litre e'!