Stangbass

I recently did a Brembo 4-piston caliper upgrade on my car. I got a used set off ebay and for some reason there are a bunch of these up for sale with bent or crushed crossover line. I have a feeling that it scares many people off from buying these, because it almost did for me.


I found next to no information on how to get a replacement line, a very scant info on how to repair the line. Fortunately I dug up the info I needed on an old thread on a Viper website.

Easiest route would be to take to a brake shop. Any decent shop that does brakes would easily be able to replace this line. BUT, you can repair the line yourself with items found at your local autozone.

You will need:
-Tubing cutter
-Inline flaring tool(Don't get clamp style single or double flaring tool. Trust me on this one just get the inline)
-3/16" line with M10x1 bubble flared ends(AZ carries this in several different lengths. Just get one long enough because you will have to cut it)



The method I used to bend the tube was to screw in one side of the line, then use the box end side of two wrenches to make the bends. The AGS line AZ sells is specifically designed to bend reasonably easy.






Once you get the line up to the last bend, go ahead and use the tubing cutter to cut the line. Then make your final bend to get the cut end into the other side of the caliper.



Once you've got the line reasonably centered, Go a head and pull the line off the caliper and flare the line, being sure to put the bolt back on before you flare the line. I used 4.75 mm adapter instead of the 3/16". It seemed to get closer to the factory flared side. I used a dremel to clean up and slightly bevel the flared in to more closely match the factory flare.



Then just replace the new line and tighten both ends. Of course check for leaks and proper caliper operation, and you are all done.



Hopefully this will help someone searching on the web for this info.

Derf00

Nice write up and yes, you are probably correct, the bent/crushed lines probably scared most people.

Bending your own brake lines is basic mechanics work as far as I'm concerned. It ranks up there with being able to change your own brakes and valve cover gaskets. But, a lot of people these days are just lazy, have zero skills, or don't want to take the time. Not so much the mustang crowd (or any enthusiast crowd) but even still, some basics are forgotten as most components are available 'off-the-shelf'.

For what, $20-25 and maybe 30 minutes of work? You saved yourself a few hundred bucks. Worth it in my opinion. Yeah a shop coulda probably done it for almost the same amount but, where's the pride in that?

flash_xx

Nice write up. I'm going to see if I can score a set of these. I need better brakes for track days but I'm not to keen on forking over 1,000 bucks on just the front brakes, not including the pads. Racing on a budget is hard.

ghunt

I dunno, the ones I've seen that were missing the crossover line were still only a hundred or so dollars cheaper than the ones that had it.

The only "cheap" Brembos I've seen was a set where somebody had actually broken a chunk out of the side of the threaded area where the crossover line threads in, and they were still kinda expensive considering that caliper was junk and would need exchanged.

Can we use the ones for the 2015-2016? I noticed they're going fairly inexpensively.

flash_xx

I hope so but I doubt it. If they would fit the price would skyrocket. The ones I've always been curious about are the CTS-V calipers. Those are dirt cheap compared to ours. I've thought about machining a bracket to make them fit but brakes are one thing I refuse to experiment on.

Stangbass

Someone has done some research on fitting the s550 brakes on the s197. Not sure what the end result was but there is some info out there.

Ricardo

You can buy new crossover tubes here.
http://www.racingbrake.com/mobile/Product.aspx?id=16803

Also the pistons/seals/dust seals are shared with camaro ss 4 piston brembos. Those all can be purchased for cheap from any GM dealer. Check my posts....i believe I made a rebuild post on these forums last summer. Edit: I went with GM pistons due to the originally purchased pistons not fitting correctly. I'll update that post when I get home.

ghunt

Well, I wondered about the S550 brakes because I keep hearing that from the front seats forward, the S550 is really an S197 chassis and they didn't change it that much. That's not to say they didn't change anything about the actual suspension setup up front though.