Brake pipe failure

[Mighty306]

So, a first for me yesterday. The offside rear solid brake line between the flexi hose & the caliper failed. Foot went right to the floor with virtually no braking. Was thankfully only doing about 15mph at the time, at the end of my road. Still very disconcerting when you think of the number of times you rely heavily on the brakes. Luckily have everything I need to fix it.

[ekjdm14]

Oof that could've been nasty yeah, no advisory for it on the last MoT or owt? was it copper/cupronickel or original steel?

Got a brake pipe to replace on the cabrio before it gets it's test, was described as " *DANGEROUS* do not drive until repaired-: Brake pipe at imminent risk of failure or fracture o/s front" TBH looks better than some other brake lines that've passed without an advisory before now, but guess it's hard to tell just how much rust has eaten away at it just by visual inspection. Copper pipe for the win.

[Mighty306]

It was the last piece of solid brake line to the rear offside caliper. It was a steel one, probably original. At some point it had a slight kink put in it n think that had split the plastic coating. It seemed to have corroded behind the coating n looked fine but of course wasn't. Explains why it wasn't picked up on Most I guess. Replaced with cupro-nickel so should be good for the remainder of the cars life.

I've noticed that a few 306's have had both the final solid lines to the rear calipers replaced so they must be more vulnerable than some of the others.

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Btw, must be one of the flexi hoses they're talking about on your cabrio.

[ekjdm14]

Nah on the cab it's the steel pipe that they marked up with the Yellow Crayon of Death™ but think I know where they were on about now, gave it a good clean up and there's some really nasty deep pits on the inside of the bend below the usual crud, definitely wouldn't trust my life to it anyway.

Those last bits of line on the back are pretty vulnerable on most torsion beam pugs I think, the plastic covering (actually think it's just painted TBF, noticed when cutting back original pipes on 206's that brake fluid makes it shrivel and fall off like paint! Not what you'd expect really, PSA...) always seems to be chipped/knocked about somehow. Not sure if it's stone damage or cack handed wheel changing but once the covering's chipped salt really gets in them more than the front.

I've always used plain copper for re-piping brakes as it's cheap and super easy to work with but for the cost difference might give CuNiFer a go as it's supposed to not work harden over time like straight copper. Not that I've ever heard of copper brake pipes cracking with old age...