Brake System Drain advice

[Neil H]

Hey thanks again for your input, Ive just spotted your thread here pierremcalpine thanks very much to you and ITSv40 for all that info!

I bought some Kunifer pipe and had a little play with the cheap pipe flare too kit i bought and decided it was a POS ! -too inconsistent for something as serious as brakes and the cutter was too big to get into tight spots anyway.
So i bought a mini cutter for £3 on ebay which is fantastic and tiny so fits anywhere i need to get and then bought a fantastic flare tool, this one

which does a perfect job every time on the steel and the Kunifer pipe, I cant recommend it highly enough for anyone in the market for a 3/8 pipe tool, plus its small enough to get into tight spaces and the handle means you can get plenty of grip when working the spanners.
I also bought a new set of four stainless steel bleed nipple screws because the ones on the caplipers were rusted and knackered.

Those new parts/tools arrived last week and today I set about getting to work.
On the drivers side its a pretty short run from the ABS block the pipes all come out of along the inner wing and through a grommet into the wheel arch so after removing the engine side cover plastic that covers the ABS block and unbolting the power steering fluid bottle and moving it to one side with the pipes still connected i could just about set in there enough to remove the pipe, make up a pattern replacement with the new pipe and refit.
at the same time im replacing the flexible hoses from the hard pipes to the calipers so everything being new the refit is easy.









On the passenger side i intended to cut the pipe along the bulkhead and join the new piece in there as it was the most accessible place with good clean original pipe available, I say accessible but i still needed to remove the airfilter box, battery and battery tray and un-mount the wiring loom to get in there and get to where the pipe routed from that point through the inner wing to the wheel arch.
At this join on the bulkhead i used a back to back joiner which mean just making off a male flare and fitting on both sections and butting the together and screwing up tight (some research i had done revealed that using male to female joins where the two pieces of pipe to be joined come into connect with each other is an MOT failure in the UK so I wasn't going to risk it and bough the correct joiners to use).

Shaping the new piece of pipe from the old one i'd removed and routing it around the inner wing and through the rubber grommet and hole in the arch before making off the final flare that connects to the other new flexi pipe and i was done.







I also took the opportunity to paint whatever surface rust i could see in the inner wing and under the battery tray with Vactan rust treatment before refitting everything and that was me done for the day.

Writing it down now it reads like a 5 minute job but it did take me all day.

Tomorrow I'll tackle the back of the car and i pray for no unwelcome surprises but no doubt i'll get some.
My intention is to just replace the pipes as best i can just to get the car through the MOT and if it all looks terrible where the fuel filter is but it passes the MOT ok I'll be buying myself some time to get on and maybe drop the fuel tank and do it all properly asap.

[ITSv40]

Nice looking work there

[Neil H]

Originally Posted by ITSv40

Nice looking work there

Thanks (and thank you for your great description and photos in the other thread!).

[canis]

That tool looks good. Much better than the one I use.

[Neil H]

Originally Posted by canis

That tool looks good. Much better than the one I use.

Its fantastic and highly recommended !
Im so glad i bought it rather than trying to struggle with the cheap crap one i first bought.

[Neil H]

today I made some headway on the back half but didn't get quite as far as i'd have hoped because i had to get a few other jobs done too.
I stripped off the old flexi pipes from the calipers, wrestled the old metal pipes of of the flexi's and popped the metal pipes out of all the retaining clips back to the chassis rails.
I've decided I'm not going to drop the fuel tank for now and will do an interim fix until next summer, if it weren't for a retaining clip or two above the tank i could easily pull the old pipe out and thread a new one through but i just cant do that right now.

Luckily the pipe looks good up ans over the tank its just where it comes out and goes the caliper that's knackered and also its pretty shot in the area next to the fuel filter so I'm going to put three joins in this length, one along the chassis rail before it goes through to the fuel filer area, one before it disappears over the tank and one where it comes out and goes to the caliper so that's going to be two new sections of pipe.
I could negate the first one by running a new entire length from the front but i'm not sure i have enough Kunifer pipe, I have more copper but should i use this or order more Kunifer pipe ?
I'm also not looking forward to routing a new pipe from the union on the bulkhead though to the underside of the car but its probably not as much of a big deal as i'm imagining I also think its going to be tight just getting a spanner in there so i hope it will even undo ok if i try.
Also i don't have the car up very high in the air (just on the first hole of my Halfords axle stands (one on each corner of the car so ive got all the wheels off) my jack doesn't go very high so I either need to find a big block of wood or work something else out as i'm not sure i can shimmy under the front part.
The car is also on a slight slope so its not ideal for jacking and i get a little claustrophobic under the car if its not jacked up high enough.

I've cut the bad pipe out at the back and made a couple of the joints already, pulled the passenger side old pipe out and have a pretty clear idea of where I'm going next (i spent too much time laying under there staring at it today but I'm a master procrastinator so its normal for me.

Anyway I've now got to go to work Fri/Sat/Sun (12hour shifts) so i have time to think about what to do next.

To be continued.......