Brakes Part 1

Right then, time to actually drill into the chassis (eek!). I got the Dax brake kit with the chassis which comprises copper pipe (3/16 or 5mm OD I think) with braided flexi hose to get to the calipers. The pipes are pre cut the correct length if you follow the suggested route in the manual. I have heard stories of having to cut down pipes to fit, or including an "engineers loop" so we will see how it goes.

The first one I'm fitting is the front passenger side. Luckily I was looking through my archive of research photos and was reminded that the steering rack passes through in the region of the brake fittings so the steel tube in the photo below is my representative steering rack so I remember to work round it. Quite a complicated route to begin with but it got easier. I used a fan heater to gently warm the pipe for half an hour but it wasnt really necessary, it bent really easily around a 3/8 socket.

First I got some medium duty garden wire to plan the route but again, this wasnt necessary and I just got stuck straight in.

Steering rack neatly avoided, now up the other side and out with the masking tape before drilling and tapping for p-clips. (No budget nylon clips here!)

Thats the difficult bit over with, now just one more bend then the rest will be left coiled up for now as there is no brake master cylinder to fit it to.

Now to drill, tap and p-clip, remembering max 300mm between fixings. I'll put another one on the diagonal bit on the left chassis member as by string round all those bends its just over 300mm

Well that wasnt so bad, bit nervous about finally drilling into the precious powder coated chassis but its really starting to feel like im building a car, not just assembling meccano