corroded brake lines “Brake pipe excessively corroded to offside front hose” this was an advisery last year and been pulled again.
after seeing it as advisery last year i cleaned up what i though was problem, joint between flexi and rigid lines, looked like new and copper greased to prevent a repeat.
this time pulled on it again so queried and was told it is the rigid brake lines, not the joints, that are corroding. they showed me the lines and said they are plastic coated metal not copper and where the plastic has worn/chipped the metal is corroding.
he said replacement kits are not available and so it would be start a fresh making new lines with copper which will be very expensive.
anyone heard of or had this problem? all cars i’ve ever had, back to a 1973 lotus elan were copper lines so why is my MX5 not copper?
The rigid brake pipes on an MX5 are galvanised steel. Not sure about the MK2 but no plastic coating on the MK1 as far as I remember - possibly it is old underseal that is pealing off.
I would get under the car with a brass or wire brush to see how bad the corrosion is. If not too bad just do what I do on my cars - clean off rust, rust kill with hydrate 80 or similar, paint with smoothrite or similar and then underseal.
I imagine the original pipes are expensive to buy. You can buy the copper kits cheaply from a well know auction website and a flaring tool to make up your own brake lines. Hopefully this has been caught in time for refurbishment rather than replacement.
MOTers have to advise or fail where the ferrules on flexible pipes or rigid pipes look corroded. They cannot fail your car where there is no sign of corrosion although my cars usually have an advisory to say that proper inspection of brake pipes and suspension not possible because of a layer of underseal:-)
The exposed brake lines have been poor on all the MX5’s I have owned.
Your local motor factor will knock you one up in a couple of mins and probably charge you less than £15 for a front one as they are short.
Soft copper or harder cunnifer is available for the new lines. Cunnifer is more difficult to bend.
The new cheap style brake pipe flaring tools on a popular auction site are poor quality and will not be up to the job.
I bit the bullet and bought a very old sykes pickavant tool which does a lovely job. Rolls of copper tube are about a tenner, and the unions pence each.
I can see myself becoming unpopular on here but I assure you all I have only the best possible intentions.
I would say that the idea of an advisory is that at the next convenient time you fix the problem. OK, Feb isn’t the best time to crawl under a car
but last summer would have been the time to rectify.
Kunifer is a trade name for an alloy of copper and nickel, also known as monel. A 25 ft roll of 3/16" Kunifer brake pipe is £13.36 on eBay at this moment inc p & p.
Come on chaps, not gonna brake (pun intended) the bank is it.
Get the local garage to make them up to length if you don’t fancy doing the flares.
Corrosion of brake lines is not just limited to MX-5s. Other manufacturers skimp a few quid by using steel lines. I had to completely re-do the front half of a Ford Fiesta, which included all the ones in the engine bay. This was a difficult job because it was obvious that the lines had been factory fitted before many other components. Those were plastic coated steel and although they were available ready made, they didn’t bend, unlike the flexible Kunifer ones I made up. Fitting originals would have involved dismantling half the engine bay.
The biggest issue on any car is threading the lines around everything else. Making up the lines isn’t so difficult if you use the correct equipment for the flared ends.
Plastic covered brake lines have been standard in most new mainstream cars for many years, not just Mazdas. Replacements lines are readily available from local specialists and are usually one of the copper alloys (e.g. kunifer) which are fairly easily to shape with a bit of care, if not always easy to feed through. If you’re getting lines made up it’s vital to take the existing line and fittings along as there are a number of flare designs, and also thread types. The new fittings and the flares put on the lines must be identical to the original. The same applies if you make them up yourself. Getting either wrong could be dangerous.
thanks for input. will start making enquiries about best way to get replacements made, either strip all off and take somewhere or have a go at doing my own.
not done anything like that before but very competent in car restoration.
just to clarify for Paul
“after seeing it as advisery last year i cleaned up what i though was problem, joint between flexi and rigid lines, looked like new and copper greased to prevent a repeat”
so job was done in summer but i’d hold of wrong end of stick