braided brake lines

[oldcorollas]

YES

if you find a braided line where the braid is for strength, it will NOT be flexible, and probably not look like a chinese fingertrap

if you can bend a metal covered line easily.. it WILL expand.
solid metal lines don7t expand much, but they aren7t flexible either

line strength and resistance to expansion almost always comes at the cost of flexibility
on a race car, with smaller suspension movement and turning angle, that may not be as important.. but in road car with X angle of turning plus 10-15cm of suspension movement... flexibility is a good thing. and failing brakes is a really bad thing.

[IN 05 NT]

surely maximum vacuum would be better, or a bigger right leg?

im assuming thats what they mean, engine running for the booster vacuum.

but dont tell the fully sick kid down the rd trying to get his car to spool while looking at the brake lines

[MR22ZZ]

Yes, but was yours the 100Kw model or the 140Kw model which has bigger brakes and possibly different brake lines from the standard range ?

they are exactly the same...
it's a rubber hose, not like T company would spend extra on using a different sort of rubber hose if it didn't have to for a low production model within an established production run.

[petergoudie]

(1) Why not use copper lines underneath as they are easier to bend. Some OEM manufacturers use copper and the others use steel because its cheaper. (2) In regard to the clutch, the pressures are so low that it should not make much difference what material the line was made from. Peugeot used milky coloured hard plastic tube. If there was any air in the line you could see the bubbles and you would know when to stop bleeding.

[chiksluvit]

i've got braided clutch line from earl's in the ae111..
it feels a lot better than the standard line, clutch release feels a lot more direct and shift feel is much nicer
a while back i posted problems with non-releasing first gear with the toda heavy duty clutch, i've changed it to a new exedy clutch and i still get notchy shifts, in the end there was nothing i could do apart from rebuilding the gearbox and changing the clutch line. so i gave the braided clutch line a go and bingo.. problem fixed

[petergoudie]

I suspect that some of the issues with pedal feel spoken about in these and other forums have to do with small amounts of air in the lines. Every time everyone replaces the hoses or lines they have to bleed the system and this is most likely why some persons say its a lot better after whatever they replaced it with. I've been repairing/playing with vehicles for 40 years and its possible the majority of that time has been trying to fix brake & clutch hydraulics. The worst ever was a few weeks ago trying to bleed my Hiace after replacing the clutch master. Foolishly, I put back the dashboard before bleeding it. I even pulled out the clutch master twice and dismantled it to check that if one of the cups might have twisted. I found the only way to bleed it was to persevere and stab stab stab the pedal repeatably to force or shock the fluid through. It took three 500ml bottles of fluid to bleed. The Peugeot was also a disater to bleed also until I was told the trick. You put a piece of clear pipe from the brake caliper nipple to the clutch nipple. You pump the brake and bleed the clutch backwards. It's even better if there is a common resevoir as everything goes in a circle. I should have done this for the Hiace. I'll get back on track - what I'm saying is that if you look closley at the expelled fluid you might see some microbubbles that take a lot of pumping to get rid of. It's those bubbles that are probably reducing the feel moreso than the type of flexible brake line.

[chiksluvit]

i've bleed the clutch line countless times trying to fix that clutch releasing problem that i had... replaced master cyl and slave cyl before trying the braided clutch line too, and it didnt fix it until the braided clutch line..
i guess my old line was really off... might've became leaky after time, but the braided line certainly helped big time

[petergoudie]

Just a thought with your sticking clutch. I tend never to throw any of my old parts out as I sometimes can use them as samples. However, what I have found is that there can sometimes be minor differences between parts that are supposed to be identical even from the same manufacturer. May be this is one reason why one clutch assemly locked and the other didn't. I had an issue where all four brakes would randomly lock and not release. Sometime earlier I had rebuilt the power booster. I pulled out the vacuum control piston and compared it with an old one I had. The newer one was about half mill longer. This half mill meant the rubber cup just covered the line release port. I filed the half mill off and never had a problem. Both pistons were from the same OEM manufacturer. The problem was probably with the person who made the dies in the tool room. I later heard that other persons had the same problem as me but they threw the old booster out and purchased a complete new one at tremenous cost.

[chiksluvit]

ah yup you're right, i've noticed that the new clutch master cyl was slightly different to the old one...
reason i replaced the master and slave cyl was an attempt to fix the non releasing problem, the problem was there before everything was installed,

i initially had slightly notchy shift and crunchy reverse with stock clutch when i got the car, the notchy shift was worsened to non-release of first gear since the toda clutch was installed, then i replaced all these parts in the order of master cyl, slave cyl, clutch, release bearing, with the final attempt being the braided lines and finally fixing it permenantly in the end

[TERRA Operative]

chiksluvit, where did you get your braided clutch line?

[chiksluvit]

my mechanic got it made up at earl's for me, we had to take mine out and send it to earl's to get one made up according to that.
i've still got the old line lying around, can help if you need one too, you just gotta make sure that ur clutch line is the same length and shares the same fittings as the ae111 6 spd box.. which i think it is anyway