With Wings As Eagles: Craig P. Steffen's Blog

take the red pill

2008 February 18 22:56

I worked on the beetle's brakes tonight. My chief concern at the moment is replacing the line that that runs from the brake master cylinder in the front of the car to the rear brakes.

Here's the master cylinder currently in the car.

The two rubber lines that come in from the top of the photo are the fill lines from the brake fluid reservoir. The metal line that goes from the cylinder to the right is the line that has the leak in it. In fact, the stains around where it goes into the body are probably a result of that. The other metal line, the one that goes to the left, actuates the front brakes.

This "T" splits to the two front brakes.

The line in the lower right comes from the master cylinder, the line coming toward the camera goes to the left front brake, and the line that goes out of the top of the T and away from the camera goes to the right front brake.

This view is from outside the left front fender.

A metal line comes from the T in the body and connects to the rubber line at upper left, which continues off the photo and descends down the right side toward the wheel.

Here, the rubber line has been replaced with new braided lines. The metal supply line has been disconnected and turned down to drain the front brake circuit. I want the brake system as dry as possible before I replace the master cylinder.

Here's the other end of the front-to-back brake line, it ends in a T as well. The line on the left of the T comes through the body, the black line goes to the left rear brake, and a metal line out of view supplies the right rear brake.

Before I thread the new brake line, I need to remove the old one from the T.

Here, I've cut the old brake line to make it easier to unthread the compression nut from the T.



Well, now I'm comitted. Most of the other changes and repairs I've done to the car were reversible. I could put back the old starter, for instance. This one is permanent. I know that the front to back brake line was leaking badly and probably causing damage to other parts of the car, but this is the first thing that I can think of that I've altered in the car that I can't put back without a tremendous amount of work. I guess I'll find out how deep the rabbit hole goes. :-)