Some of you may have seen this in a TTDWAB email... thought I'd throw it up here as well. At first when I proposed this idea, everyone said "no", but they didn't know why. "It's just not the way you run brake lines!" So, being the understanding and cooperative young man I am, I did it anyway. Brake lines have never really been my thing. I recognize that you need them, but I've never enjoyed looking at them flapping around. This is the result of a shift in my brake line paradigm. Out of the Wilwood calipers, I brought the braided line straight down to the tie rod. I made the little aluminum clamps that hold the union fitting to the tie rod. The little aluminum clamps holds the 3/16 union fitting where I've turned the hex off (bottom one). Through full steering travel, the braided lines going to the calipers have to flex about 1/4" total. Basically, the only angle that actually changes is the angle between the steering arms and the tie rod. Other than that, we're talking fractions of degrees. To get to the frame, I used a tee fitting that is held by another aluminum clamp. I put a set screw on the bottom so it doesn't slide around, by the way. A stainless hard line runs along the top of the tie rod then a flexible stainless line goes parallel to the Pitman arm, under the Mullins box, and to the frame rail. This flex line will flex the most in the whole system, but it's still not moving as much as the line going from the caliper to the frame rail in a traditional system. I offset the T fitting towards the motor so that as you're walking up to the car, the frame rail hides it from your line of sight. Here is the end of the flexible line coming from under the steering box. I used a Panhard tab as a line clamp... you can read that article here.
For what ever my .02 is worth, I dig it!! I like how clean and simple it is!!! I needed some good ideas on how to do this without an ugly mess of lines bent every where. Thanks for posting!!! Jay
looks sweet to me!..thanks for the idea..was just thinking about this just the other day, but didnt have the same cure you came up with.
Looks nice and clean, and looks like it should work okay. You might want to make sure there's no chance that the lines could somehow snag on something like the pitman arm or something at different ride heights and all the different angles the steering, because if it did snag on something, it might keep you from straightening the wheels back out after a turn. It's sort of similar to how the rear axle is plumbed on a lot of cars, except for the wheels steering at the flexible parts. I like it. It might be a bad idea for people that don't do it very carefully though -- like if someone just tie wrapped or duct taped it all together like that, it could come loose and then the brake line could snag on something and make it impossible to steer all of the sudden.
I've seen a similar set up, only the brake line was mounted to the axle (inside the rear facing part of the I-beam)...
I really like how clean the installation looks. The problem I see is that the wheel steering motion is going to tend to loosen the torque on the fitting at the wheel brake. Also, the suspension motion is gong to tend to loosen the torque on the bulkhead fitting on the tie rod. On aircraft installations, we are never allowed to have the fitting thread axis parallel to the axis of motion, it must alway be off axis to prevent the possibility of loosening. You may want to apply some torque putty of some other method so you can tell if the fittings are backing off before they develop a leak.
I ran it through a bunch of different angles and I tried a bunch of different lengths of flexible lines, and this seemed to be the best combination. I agree, not being able to steer would be bad!
good idea... I was thinking about the thread axis, and decided that with the amount of movement it's going to see, and the fact that the tie rod moves just as much as the wheel as I'm turning (I know it's still minutely twisting the fitting), that the flexible line would absorb most of the vibration and twisting action. I'll definitely put a little dab of something across the fittings to make sure they don't loosen up.
Neat idea, I've never seen it done like that. Now you got me thinking, would it be possible to hide the hardline inside the tie rod? Just wondering out loud...
Mine is this way too. These little clamps look great. So, to set the toe you just loosen the set screws so the tie rod can rotate?
At first I thought it looked quite unusual and a bit rigged, but after looking a bit longer it became apparent that your design puts a whole lot less flexing and strain and movement on the hoses. The usual method makes sure the hoses are bending, shaking, twisting all around, but your design moves the hose very little. Nice. The only drawback I can see at the moment is the vulnerability of the line running across the long tie rod. Instead of running along with the protection of the frame rail as most brake lines have, this one is out in the open where it can be damaged or broken by an encounter with some serious road debris. Other than putting a lot of trust in those clamps, and counting on not running into road debris, I really like the rest of the design.
heh, on my Ridler car I'll put the line inside the tie rod This was a pretty big concession for my dad who wanted me to tap a 5/8" OD tube with 1/8NPT in each end and weld it through the frame... kind of like a thru frame fitting, except without the nuts on either side. I thought about running it in the tie rod, but while it would look great, the other thing that does is make it difficult to adjust toe, as someone else mentioned. Now I just loosen the set screws on the clamps, rotate the tube, and retighten the set screws. Regarding the line along the tie rod, whatever I hit has to basically clear the axle along most of the length before it could hit the brake line. I figured there was much less "surface area" of brake line hanging out than the traditional way to get snagged on stuff... and really, have you ever heard of someone getting their brake line caught on something anyway? thanks so much for the comments!
Here's some shots of one of the three clamps along the tie rod. I used black marker so I could see the scribe lines... cheap metal blue or whatever it's called. Maybe everyone does this already, but I stapled some really short berber carpet on my bench, and I love it! stuff doesn't roll, it's quieter...
I like it - it looks good. My only two concerns would be loosening of the fittings as mentioned above. The other concern, which may be nothing at all, but I can't really see - is there any way the suspension can bottom out & crush the line? Or will the axle hit first?
Mounting the hard line behind the tie rod is an option if you're worried about it being on top. You'll probably want to change the clamp set screw location if you do that.
The axle will hit the center of the crossmember first, but if it gets to that point, I'll have something else on my mind!
I like it, its clean and simple. But I cannot use that system on my car. On my car the tie rod link is tucked just behind my lower pulley and in just the right turning and bump conditions can rub the pulley, I wouldn't want to risk cutting the brake lines.
OK - that's cool. What about if only one side bottoms out? Same thing? Axle hits first? As C9 said, you could run it to the back of the tie-rod...
If the brakeline does hit, the worst would be a leak, but more than likely it would just get crushed. I'm guessing that it would not crush so bad that it would be sealed off. Thing I really like about it - aside from the out of the box thinking - is that it gets the long sweep of brake line out of the way when you want to work next to the engine. That said, my 32's braided flex line isn't in the way most times, but I'm probably just used to it. As you can see you have to work around it. 68-70 Mustang disc brakes fwiw. The Mustang disc brakes would require an extra piece or two for the line to go directly to the tie rod. Not so for the Camaro disc brakes shown below.
Maybe it's just the angle of the photo, but wouldn't a braided line make its way pretty easily to the tie rod? The camaro calipers would work really nice going to the axle...
That is slick as a mink ! Much better than the long, loose lines normally seen going to the calipers. As far as the thread axis loosening the lines, maybe it would be better to use the more common banjo style end? That would prevent the problem.
...simply amazing what ideas people come up with, that's a very clean approach; I don't see why that won't work in normal use. Very nice work on the entire car from what we can see also.
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