Bought brake lines for the 500 special...

"Mathias Rios" (Mars478) 11/29/2013 at 02:01 • Filed to: 924, porsche, 500 special

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Finally got around to buying brake lines, the bubble flare tool and brake line cutter for my !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . (Why is that post getting so many views so many weeks later?). I'm excited. This will be my first foray into the world of brake line repair. I plan on doing a lazy fix at first just to get her driving and to confirm that the system holds pressure and that there aren't any other issues by just cutting out the rusty piece of line and replacing it with some new lines and joints connected to the old lines. Eventually I hope to replace the whole set of lines since the PO butchered up the lines attempting to fix them. Anyone have any tips/recommendations or advice on brake line work? (keep in mind, these are the hard brake lines we're talking about. Video of the damage here:

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orcim > Mathias Rios 11/29/2013 at 03:19

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That video makes me cringe.

I'm not an expert, but have done plenty brake line repairs from living in the sub-tropics - they corrode like all things seem to do, here.

First thing I'd suggest is getting the hang of the flaring tool dealie and making good seals with it. Make sure you have the right ends for it - there's two major ones, one goes on foreign cars and the other domestic. Just pull one of the junction blocks apart to test it. Once you have this down, I wouldn't do a lazy fix, I'd go for the permanent (unless there's other work going on.)

Side note: I only once flared my own ends. Usually I removed the line from the car, measured it, and bought it complete from the auto store with the ends already on. If the line was a little long, I just lost the excess in an expansion loop or zig zag where it was protected and you couldn't see it. I liked this because I didn't have to worry about the skills of flaring. Ymmv.

The next thing is that you need a pipe bender and to use it religiously. No bends without the brake line bender. There is nothing more frustrating then getting 5 perfect bends into a line and then just "tweaking" the last bend to fit right and having it kink. This is a "I didn't know I knew that word" type of event.

You'll have to practice at getting the bends in the right place. Do a few with a plain piece of line and see how the bender lines up and where it actually makes the bend. It takes a little getting used to.

If you can, pull the whole line out intact with no distortion, and then bend the new line to that if you can. It helps to hold them right next to each other. There is some play so they don't have to be perfect perfect, but you'll know when it should be right and when it can be a little off.

Watch out at those junctions. They may just be splitters or tees, but I had one that looked like a quad tee thing, but it was actually a pressure equalizer in case one master cyl. failed to equalize the rear brakes and it was gunked from the corrosion in the lines. Make sure all junctions are clean or if they have parts in them, that they seem to be working. If the threads are weird or anything when you test fit your threaded ends into them, just get a new/used one or clean the threads out with a tap/die set. These days considering the age of my cars, I almost always clean the old threads out on both sides.

I leave it to you to figure out the caliper/drum condition. Mine were cool forever, and then one year, they had super gunk running through them that I didn't catch and replace. Ended up messing up my ABS unit when my backblow clamp failed while changing pads (now I don't have one - just plumbed it like std. brake line car.) Make sure when you bleed that they are running clear and the pistons seem to be moving. If they are 20+ years old, replace/rebuild? You're call.

Anyway, my 2 cents.

Mathias Rios > orcim 11/29/2013 at 11:32

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Super useful info. Will buy or source a brake line bender ASAP. If I knew of an easy way to remove the whole line I would but it runs from the MC all the way to the rear transaxle (/diff, these Porsches have rear mounted trannys). Any words of wisdom? Anyways once again thanks very much, this is the kind of comment I needed. And yeah that video is cringeworthy.

orcim > Mathias Rios 11/29/2013 at 15:50

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If you have some hard to negotiate places that could only be installed while assembling the whole car, get yourself some junctions/couplers for the brake line size you have, and use them to break a long line into two or more pieces. I don't consider that to be a weakness in the line, since the couplers are strong and if the threaded ends are good, it'll last.

Glad it was of use. I learned all this the hard way having to become a faux mechanic due to circumstance, and not training. Turns out that working on old cars can be frustrating (you should'a seen me when I broke a chunk off my head getting an old water junction out) but it's also very fulfilling with getting it done.