front to rear brake lines- one piece?

we are shortly to be replacing the rear-brake lines on our project car, and I'm wondering if anyone can say if they are one-piece straight back..?

I've noticed a join on each line, ahead of the fuel tank and just before the rear-compensator valve, and these seem common on other Coupe's we have inspected.

But, from there to the ABS pump- is it ONE piece..?

any advice greatly received...

Yes and No, according to ePer.

In a similar way that there are joins near to the compensator value (which could be assumed to need attention at some stage in the car's life, requiring lines to be disconnected), there are joins near to the ABS unit - but ONLY for later models after 15 Nov 1997 (chassis 53574) when the brakes lines were "standardised" (whatever that means). At the same time the front lines were "standardised" but there's no obvious difference before and after.

Work back from ABS unit to discover the other joint, if there is one.

PS: the two rear pipes are connected to the "right" side of the ABS unit (as you look at it standing in front of the car) on the side where the pump itself is, opposite the solenoids/electrical connector. The connections are helpfully labelled LR and RR (and LF and RF) which hopefully is based on English rather than German (Bosch ABS remember) or Italian

That is massively helpful actually, Dave-

Thankyou for going into detail over that.

I'll have to have a look then- the lines seem to dissapear above a plastic guard, round about the handbrake reaction-point.
More fooling-around required!

Can you say what type of junctions, those junctions are, ahead of the compensator? I think there is a couple of kinds; these are NOT compression-joints are they? Both sides have been flared and it's a back to back coupler of some kind joining them, is that right..?

Thankyou again...

I'm not quite sure on this, but I believe first join could be just where pipes coming out of ABS meet floor of the car, there is a threaded join for each rear axle brake line.

I think is worth to take a look, that would help.

Hope this helps..

The front "junction" connection (if there, later cars only) is the same as the rear, male fitting on one side, female on the other, no coupler in the middle, and each side is opposite (one side is M-F, the other F-M) so that you don't inadvertently mix them up. At least according to ePer.

I'm keeping an eye on your progress because I need to replace at least 1 rear brake pipe (the one that clips to the swing arm) and I've never made up brake pipes before, I don't even have a flaring kit and pipe (yet)...

Thanks for this input Dave

Do you mean the c.10" section on the rear trailing arm?

yeah; that is what he means, Simon

these;

Yes, thems are the ones

thanks for that input, Dave- again; that's going to be very useful

yes- we're keeping an eye on our OWN progress! we're approaching it quite forensically at the moment.









apparently, none of these handbrake/ brake-flexible/ ABS sensor cable brackets are available anymore. So; we've got to conserve whats left of the stock ones...

It's funny how photos (especially with flash turned on) make the rust look far worse than it is. On my Porto 20vt the rear brake disk dust guards and the inverted "dome" that the rear bump stops fit in to look to be in good condition like they do on your project car, but the trailing arm tends to look horrendously scabby with all the paint eventually peeling off (sometime reluctantly) and those brackets look similarly bad. I'll be doing similar work on my Porto...

Are you planning to remove the rear subframe and renew the bushes?

No, not at this stage- were slowly heading towards finishing at the rear, moving to the front to tackle the engine work, and then eventually creeping up on an MOT.
We've got the fuel tank off at the moment also, and need to source a fuel pump.

If the subframe bushes are highlighted at the MOT as being a problem, then we'll make a decision- we've chosen to deliberately shy away from 'big-tool' jobs at this point, and are trying to address the worst of the corrosion (which is relatively mild).

Yeah- the flash makes everything orange, but at least you can see it all.
It won't be like that before we paint it; it'll be more like the 2nd-final shot of those handbrake/ brake-flexible/ ABS sensor cable brackets, after the metal-etch primer stage.

Right-

What am I doing wrong?

The INCOMING brake lines on the rear compensator are not 13mm nuts are they??

I thought brake flare spanners were a standard size- what do I really need here? Is it 11mm..??

Yes 11mm seems to be the standard size on the Coupe, used to be 10mm on older Fiats AFAIK

Oh, and good luck getting those apart!

thanks for that, Dave-

and yes; it's going to be 'emotional' to say the least...

If you're replacing anyway then just cut the lines.

yeah- were just trying to match the shapes, Matt

I'm just perusing the workshop manual and it says


Again, I suspect that the different sizes are to make sure that inlet (11mm?) and outlet (13mm?) are not mixed up, but if you end up replacing any pipes, you might find that you only have 10mm connectors...

turned out indeed to be 11 & 13mm-

thanks for that input...

Are the 13mm hex fittings not M12 x 1.00 unions? Common to find on ABS units and bias valves.

To DaveG...the pipe for the swing arm took me half an hour to make, 7 bends in 42ish cms. Just buy the hand held tool, watch a few vids and try to do a better job than the bodgers in the video. End prep is the most important thing.