Next on the list: installing the brake and fuel lines.
I have been taking my time in this area for a number of reasons. Clearly, the brakes are important, especially on a small car with a powerful engine, and I want to make sure the car is safe. After reading the documentation and talking to the folks at Lone Star and some other guys who have built these cars, I came up with the following overall diagram:
…and here it is with a few of the fittings included. These four fittings are what will go into the sides of the Wilwood calipers themselves.
There are a lot of parts, fittings, etc., and I took my time in getting them all organized. I also have some experience in flaring gas lines in residential construction many years ago, so I wanted to flare the brake lines myself. There are a number of great how-to videos on the web talking about the typical double flare approach used for this 3/16 inch flexible tubing, so those were extremely helpful. Here are the tools I purchased for this job:
Here are the various fittings etc. that came with the kit.
These flexible hoses will be used to attach the front calipers to the system. The flexibility allows them to work even as the wheels are being steered from side to side.
There were two of these brass T-fittings in the kit, and it wasn’t terribly clear which was which. After some detective work and a few calls to LSC and others, I learned that the one on the left is for the brake light sensor, and the one on the right is the T that joins the two front wheels’ brakes together.
This brake line is for the rear. It is flexible because it will run from a hard point on the frame to the top of the differential, which will move up and down with changes in the road surface. The T-fitting shown on the right allows lines to be run out to each of the two rear calipers.
This end will bolt to the panhard bar bracket on the differential:
…and this end connects to the hard point on the frame.
Again: nice set of nuts and bolts and c-clips, all organized for this project. There were some missing items that would have been nice to have: the e-clips needed for the brake adapter parts as well as the bolt and nuts needed to attach the rear flexible line to the differential bracket.
Here is the fuel line. It has a larger diameter than the c-clips above anticipated, so I will need to go out and buy some larger c-clips to attach this to the frame. The good news is that it is flexible and seems to be of good quality, so line resistance should be low and it should be relatively easy to install.
These 3/8 inch c-clips clearly won’t be able to fit around this fuel line easily:
Exciting stuff! More to come soon…
buildingmycobra 