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

but what about the brakes?

2008 March 04 08:11

When we last heard from our hero, he was working on wiring and batteries and stuff, and not on the brakes which is why the freaking car is up in the air in the first place. I did get a bunch done this weekend, I just hadn't had time to edit the photos.

So I got two "bubble-flared" brake lines bent and installed in the front and the back, and I Saturday I made a section to bridge them in the middle of the car, right below the driver's door. I got the length matched pretty well:

I'll try give you an idea of where the line runs. Here's the master cylinder as it stands now:

I've indicated the brake line that I installed with a red arrow over on the right. This line goes over to the left side of the car and runs down the place where the heater channel is, right below the driver's door. I've also circled the hole in the body where the stock rear brake line goes into the body and around the pedal cluster.

Now we're looking into the fender well where the wheel normally sits.

You can see the line bend here to follow the body shape. I've highlighted the two flare unions where the patch piece is installed.

Now near the rear of the car

the line comes from the left, goes through the jack point, then bends inwards toward the center of the car and then bends up once it clears the torsion tube (in the brightened area at the right of the photo).

A slightly difference view as last time, this one shows where the brake line curves around the torsion tube.

The arrow points to the brake line "T" where the front-to-back line is split to go to the rear brake slave cylinders.

After getting the brake line run, I padded it against the metal of the car and attached it with cable ties. Here's one of the joins padded with a piece of fuel hose and tied on with a cable tie (my motto: "better living though cable ties").

The brake line dressed where it goes through the jack point:

The back of the front fender well again, with padding so the line doesn't rub on the metal of the body.

Looking from the back of the car to toward the front.

You can see the two unions in the brake line where the bridge section goes. I circled the left front wheel spindle for perspective.

Remember, running a new brake line in a "custom" location was because I mis-diagnosed where the leak in the brake system was, thinking it was in the front-to-rear brake line, when it turns out the leak was in the master cylinder. And one of these days, I need to get back to the wheel bearings so I can drive the car again. Argh.