[s-cars] Rear brake saga - The Questions have Ended!

Eric Phillips gcmschemist at gmail.com
Fri Feb 24 19:50:08 EST 2006


> > i don't particularly like pre-made hoses, because i've had swaged
> > fittings start leaking between the hose and swaged fitting.  also, because
> > the hoses on the car are different lengths, i have to have several
> > different sizes of spares.  i assemble my own out of bulk hose.  all
> > i need are a length of bulk hose and some compression sleeves, and i can
> > do a field replacement on any hose on the car in minutes.
>
> IMO, DIY hoses are fine for race cars and other liability limited
> applications.

Actually, this is a very important point.  Having swaged literally
thousands of fittings in my lifetime (high pressure gas, not high
pressure liquid), I would not be uncomfortable doing the home-brew
hose.  After plumbing hundreds of linear feet of high-pressure
hydrogen supply line, I figure I can handle the task of a critical
leak-free application.  But (!!!) the insurance company might not see
it that way.  In fact, some smarty-pants investigator might think
about denying coverage, even if the part in question wasn't the
failure!

DOT-compliant lines are really the only choice here.  While Ted's idea
is perfectly fine, there does exist that small possibility of a hassle
somewhere down the road.

And to get those kind of lines, you buy an assembled line from someone
who's done the appropriate paperwork, and sent the line samples to a
lab that tests those sorts of things.  This says nothing about how
good Ted's lines are.  It's all about CYA, nothing more.

I've been talking with Matt at StopTech, and I think that he can help
me out no matter which way I go - banjo or NPT.  One of the advantages
of banjo is that you avoid line-twist issues that can arise from
having to spin the whole line (as with NPT) as opposed to just using a
bolt.

Hmmm - an NPT fitting would have essentially zero fluid flow
restrictions, however...

Eric


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