ok... i got my car in the air, and pull the back tires off to begin the change from old rubber lines to the new braided ones I purchased to improve my braking. passenger side looks correct, like from factory. here's the weird part. the drivers side "looks" factory too, only its missing the damn rubber line! its got a hardline screwed directly into the caliper. no kidding. its the factory looking line with the wire wrapping around it, etc etc. the bracket to mount the braided/rubber line is gone, and it appears to be the entire line, all the way from the distro block to the caliper. whomever did this did a damn good job too... has nice even bends, ran it using all the appropriate factory routing brackets, etc. guess they just figured replacing the brake pads was someone elses headache... lucky me

what do you guys recommend? do i just go with it until i need a brake job (pads are fairly new looking... LOTS of wear left) or do i try to find a replacement middle hard line and and try to fab a new bracket for the flexline? sadly time is a factor here... i need to have this done by monday morning.

on a side note, i have never seen brake calipers this old look this good.. they are the originals and they even have the little caps on the bleeder valves, etc.

Thank you all in advance for the help!

Thunder

 

not the best way of doing things, the calipers move a little so the hard line could eventually break. Are the fittings on the hardline right? if so you could probably do some creative bending so make some room for the flex line. If not you can get a new line from classictube, finelines, ect.

if time is an issue, and it hasnt broken yet, just leave it until you have time.

 

would you or anyone else by chance have a picture of what its supposed to look like?

 

I am assuming you have the cast iron rear calipers. One is facing the front and one facing the rear. I have worked on a couple of these and they were both as you describe. The later cars with aluminum calipers(PBRs) were both on the back side and had rubber lines.

 

What you describe is OE for Delco-Moraine calipers, 82-88. PBR's, 89-92, incorporated flex lines at both calipers. If you have an extra line, you've purchased the wrong package.

JamesC

 

That would be factory on the driver side, the rear end I took out of an 84 Z28 to put in my car was setup the same way. I thought someone else had done that too, but the parts store didn't even have a listing for rubber lines for that side.

 

its one of the "earls performance" brake line packages. the other lines appear to all be correct... the center, rear passenger, front two are all correct length and fitment. thank you all for the information, I didn't see in any of the repair books that they had made one side a hardline... they all referred to removing the rubber line on both sides.

i just can't believe that the engineers at gm would make you HAVE to bleed the brake system when replacing the drivers side rear brakes. thats insane. guess i am going to have to modify it to incorporate this last flex line when i have to replace those pads

 

Why mod it at all?

Should you be interested, check the following link to see the various types of lines and what they fit:

http://www.spohn.net/?action=shop&pcid=1082

JamesC

 

for the same reason that from 89 on they had 2 rubber lines to the rear calipers... so you can easily perform a brake job without dealing with brake fluid and bleeding the lines again. i eventually will have to pull the line off in order to change those pads... at that point it will be just as easy to cut off a length of line, re flare it and put the flex line on. then i never have bleed the lines, worry about breaking the line, etc.. just like on more modern cars.

 

Why would you have to bleed the brakes to put on brake pads? The line can move you know.

 

on your car, that is correct. you have a rubber line to all 4 calipers. my drivers side rear caliper is plumbed with what appears to be 20 year old factory hard line. i don't know about you, but cranking on old metal brake lines isn't something that usually works out in my favor. especially when the ends start to get a little on the rusty side.

 

No, my car has the same calipers in the back that yours does. You don't have to bend the crap out of the line, just enough to get the caliper up enough to get the pads out.

 

I just replaced my pads, and the line is just as you described. It will flex enough for everything you need to do. I just turned a small bucket upside down so I could set the caliper on top of it after I pulled it off. The line still has plenty of flex. I would not disconnect it to do the pads.

 

sweet. if you all can do that without having issues, then I am comfortable leaving it as is until i decide to upgrade to better brakes. thank you everyone!