[s-cars] Confirmed: Braided brake lines don't age well

[Theodore Chen]

the brake lines look OK to me.  what you're seeing is the deterioration
of the plastic sheathing.  the braided steel jacket of the brake line
looks OK in the picture.  that's braided stainless steel, which is pretty
tough stuff and almost always ends up cutting through whatever is rubbing
against it (including mild steel).

the abrasion of the yellow plastic is probably from tire rub.  you
should fix that by rerouting the lines so they don't rub.

my brake lines don't have any plastic sheathing.  the most i did
was wrap them with electrical tape, and i'm not really convinced that
does much.  the ones on the '92 S4 are 3 years old and have about 35k
miles on them.

the ones on the mustang go back to '97, but that car doesn't get driven
in bad weather much.  those lines probably have about 40k miles on them.

unless the braided steel hose is abused (through kinking, pinching,
or abrasion of the braided steel jacket), the failure mode is rarely
catastrophic.  grit may get through and abrade the teflon liner.  then
you get a brake fluid leak, which you'll notice as the brake pedal
starts sinking and the brake fluid level starts dropping.  but unless
it's a huge leak, it's unlikely to result in sudden loss of brakes
because the braided steel jacket is keeping the teflon lining from 
blowing apart.  

if the braided steel jacket is damaged, you must replace the line 
immediately.

i assembled my lines myself from reusable hose ends and bulk hose.
it's probably not a bad idea to rebuild my brake hoses soon.  just
have to buy some more hose and compression sleeves, and i can redo
all the hoses for a few bucks per corner.  maybe this time around,
i'll try dipping them in liquid vinyl to coat them, but i doubt that
stuff will last very long.  i suppose i could run them inside some
fuel hose.

-teddy

--- Mike Claire <mike.claire at gmail.com> wrote:

> A few months ago there was discussion about running braided lines on the
> street.  Lots of opinions on both sides, but it changed my mind about street
> use.  I figured I'd eventually put OEM rubber lines back on.
> 
> My ECS braided lines are only 3 years and 12K miles old, with very little
> winter use.  I didn't bother to inspect them at the time.  I figured they
> had to be fine for now.
> 
> 
> 
> Have a look:
> 
>
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=319038483&size=o&context=set-72157594414349733
> 
> The other side looked just as bad, except without the strange abrasion that
> wore through the thick yellow plastic in the middle of this one (still can't
> figure that out).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mike
> 93 'S4, soon with OEM rubber line lines
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> 



 
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