Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Thoughts on BRB fouling brake line flexies

Fitted BRBs as part of the front end and they significantly foul the flexible brake lines. I have my MOT booked in later this week. I think this will clause a fail. I can’t see another solution other than removing the BRBs or a significant repositioning of the hard and flexible brake lines. I’ve tried running the flexies over the BRB but tats even worse



Thoughts welcome

Looks like your flexi hose has been rubbing on the infrastructure before you even fitted the BRB's and that looks like a fail anyway for the MOT? Remind us what car you have, is it a narrow body?

I'll go antdlook at my plus4 now and see what's going on there but I'm sure it doesn't look anything like yours re. the routing of the flexi's.

PM me your email address and I'll send you some pictures of mine and perhaps we can get to the bottom of it all!

Martin.

I don't think that is actually a fail, at worst, possibly an advisory.

My reading of the Testers Manual is that the flexi has to show serious damage when presented for it to be a fail.

Looks like you have mitigated against damage to the flexi by splitting the rubber tubing and cable tying it to the flexi.

When I fit them. I'll position the brake reaction bars in such a way as the sidewall of the tyres will not rub on them.

Arwyn

My brake pipe on one side was showing signs of rubbing on one side, the tester cable tied it similar to yours no fail.

The marks in the pic are where I’ve scraped away the wax oil with my finger. There’s no evidence of any rubbing prior to fitting the BRBs. I’ve wrapped them in split silicone tubing.

My tester is a good man, old school and understands old cars. Been using him for 30 plus years.

There is no alternative place to fit the just fire and aft by maybe 1/4 inch.

Arwyn,

How do you achieve that when fitting the BRB, my 4/4 70th and Roadster had BRB's fitted and both rubbed on the tyre sidewalls and reduced the lock.

Simple, I didn't buy ready made ones , made my own and also filed away at the bottom mount to bring it closer to the inner wing....

Arwyn

John, You have to make your own BRB's. Either adjust the length or you can ,if its an old narrow body bend the bars with an inward angle to clear the tyre on full lock. use an old wire coat hanger to determine the point at which you make the bend. I do use a pipe bender to make the bend and protect the tube and the deformation has no effect on the function of the BRB. The BRB's are made such as to protect the chassis should the cross-head take an impact in that the chassis rear mounting point should suffer little damage in that event, you could say that a modified BRB in the way I have just described will have a natural fold point thus aiding chassis protection even more.

Having always worried about the resultant chassis damage from impact to the front of the car on the rear BRB mount I have for the last two years been using brass bolts and stainless nylock's on the chassis end and there seems to be no detrimental damage to the bolt in use. I had expected to change them annually but on inspection they seem fine. My prompt for this solution was that when the BRB's were first marketed they had bolts supplied that were stated as shear-able in the event of frontal impact but now they seem to be supplied with high tensile steel versions, I think the chassis would suffer damage were these used and an impact occurred. Perhaps the tube SWG rating is thinner than the originals and the tube expected to collapse before damage takes place but I don't want to chance it!

Something has changed because in 2016 the flexible is nowhere near the BRB.

Thanks for that, I haven't made anything in metal since metalwork class in 1970, so I doubt I have the right tools or way with all 55 years on. Whilst I understand your concerns regarding having a sheer-able connection, my initial thought is, if the metal doesn't collapse and sheers away, where could it finish up?,