brakes Brake Line Strut Mount Bracket--Do I Need It?

[70deluxe]

Just finished putting on my stainless steel brake lines and installing the Volvo/320i vented brake upgrade. 

 

Of course the lines coming out of the calipers are not plug and play and don't exactly line up with the holes on the bracket that are on the strut--all the angles are considerably off.

 

Being new to brakes and what not, my question is how important is it that I use that bracket?  What would happen if I just omit it and hook up the new stainless steel brake lines to the lines coming out of the caliper? 

 

If I can't do that, what is the trick to bending and massaging the caliper lines to get things to line up nicely?  Do you bend them by hand?  Is heat applied?  Some special tool?  How much can I bend them...?

 

Thanks in advance.

[felix_666]

Yes you need them.

 

Make sure you've tried each set on the left and right side of the car. You can bend the normal hard lines by hand, SS might be a little more difficult, all you need to do is find round objects that are roughly the radius you need and bend them to shape.

 

Perhaps start by bending some old lines to get a feel for it. They look pretty close to me, you should be able to persuade them home, however, the important part is that the male and female fittings line up square so you can get the thread started.

Edited October 10, 2014 by felix_666

[FB73tii]

+1^^  The bracket keeps the hard line from vibrating, weakening, and then snapping off from the caliper. If you had flexible lines all the way to the caliper then they would not be needed, but you'd want something to keep the lines from flopping around too much anyway.

[schoir]

There are a couple of relatively inexpensive tubing bender tools available from Eastwood that can help you do this job:

 

http://www.eastwood.com/ew-brake-forming-tool-pliers.html

 

http://www.eastwood.com/tubing-bender-and-forming-pliers-kit.html

 

You may be able to get similar tools at your local (old-time) auto parts store.

 

Be careful not to kink the lines as that will make them unusable.

 

Regards, Maurice.

Edited October 10, 2014 by schoir

[M3M3]

Just carefully bend them with your hands. The tubing is soft so you can make these small adjustments. You will be done in about a minute a side.

Edited October 10, 2014 by mlytle

[TobyB]

Yeah, skip the bender.

 

Try assembling the lines into the bracket,

then gently massaging the bracket into place.

 

The good news is, once you get it done once, they'll be right forever.

 

hth

 

t

[70deluxe]

Thanks, guys.  All done.

 

Marshall, appreciate you being PC with your response instead of saying, "just be a man already and do it with your hands you big wimp."

 

Toby, that's the way I did it before reading your post.  Much easier indeed. 

 

 

Thanks again.

[glemon]

Good job, I will add to the chorus about needing to hook it up in case anybody else is reading this.  Learned the lesson long ago on one of my first cars, an Austin Healey Sprite, I didn't see the need or just needed to button the thing back up so I cold get to work or just overlooked it, don't remember now, but I do remember I didn't attach a brake line union to the rear axle.  A couple months later my brakes suddenly got very spongy, I drove home carefully and as I pulled into the garage the pedal went to the floor, luckily it was a drive through garage and I was able to stop before I hit anything.  When I checked the cause the metal brake line coming from the union I hadn't attached had broken due to metal fatigue from bouncing around.