[DrDave]

Greetings:

Ophidian brought his car over to the shop for a look over. We were just doing a routine inspection when we saw the front brake hoses were in sad shape.

After finding these Ophidian went to work ordering up fresh hoses. The old hoses had gotten brittle and obviously cracked. All DOT approved hoses have a date of mfg on them. It is a good idea to look at them on your car to get an idea how old they are. Somewhere around 10-15 years they should be replaced. As you can see these were mfg in February of 2006.

We changed out the two front brake hoses and went about bleeding the brakes.

We bled the brakes in sequence following the manual. We saw some nasty fluid come out of the system. It's all nice and fresh now. I think if brake fluid got changed every other year it would significantly reduce problems with master cylinders and brake calipers. We only had one bleeder screw that was not cooperating. It will get changed next time when we flush the clutch cylinder.

Dave

 

[pnoye2]

Whoa, that was close Ophidian... that brake line could've burst at any time, are you not glad you consulted the Dr.?!? ...nice work Doc :thumbsup:

 

[l4zy415]

Lol man I remember when my rear driver side brake line broke. I almost crashed into another car in front of me. Luckily I threw it to neutral and pulled the e-brake. Took me forever to get my brake line. Stupid Kragen.

 

[paulo57509]

INSPECTION.......very important.

Thanks for the reminder, Doctor. :thumbsup:

If I may add: You guys running steel braided hoses; inspection is all the more critical because deterioration of these hoses isn't as evident like you see on rubber hoses.

 

[eekazum]

brings me to wonder if steel brake lines are even necessary. there's only so much force you can put into brakes before the tires lock...

 

[DrDave]

IMHO the only way to do braided stainless lines is to put clear shrink tubing over them before you install them. If you get a 3:1 or 4:1 shrink tube it will form a nice tight covering over the line. This will protect the delicate braiding and allow you to inspect the line. Braided lines have a larger bend radius than the standard lines.

The front lines on Ophidians car had some tight radius bends that are not suitable for stainless lines. You will likely not notice a difference between standard lines and stainless lines. That is as long as the standard lines are not ballooning out.

Dave

 

[eekazum]

ophidian's lucky to have you around man.

 

[89redcoupe]

Damn talk about close call!

 

[Ophidian]

lol, i didnt die..think they were like that for awhile...good thing we saw em and replaced em, thx dave.