Brake lines

Capsule · Post by **Capsule** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 6:47 am

Well,

it sounds like thereÂ´s a lot of stories about copper brake lines being useless. I do however have a hard time believeing this since that would make probably 30-40 % of all cars in Europe dangerous.

In most European countries, cars are inspected every 2 years for road safety and one typical reason for not clearing inspections is rusty steel brake lines. Copper brake lines can cope with rain, snow and salt.

Capsule

ROADRUNNER7169 · Post by **ROADRUNNER7169** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 12:15 pm

re-read the article I posted copper is not good for the rain, snow, salt or calcium chloride. Just look at the statue of liberty it is made of copper and it is green from corrosion so all you are doing by switching to copper is trading rust for corrosion.

Capsule · Post by **Capsule** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 3:46 pm

Ofcourse Copper will corrode, but its a semi-noble metal which corrodes far slower than steel. The Statue of Liberty has been around for 120 years without any protection other than the green corrosion layer which protects the underlaying copper from corroding further.
If the Statue had been made of ordinary unpainted steel, how many years do you think it would have lasted?
Copper has been used for roof panels in the old days and will last more than 100 years being exposed to all kinds of weather.

Capsule

Capsule · Post by **Capsule** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 4:02 pm

From the same article posted earlier, also it says:

The British have developed what they call "copper brake pipe", which seems to be a seamless tube made of a copper alloy that bends easily, does not rust, and is in reliable use for "classic cars". I don't have

experience with this stuff, so I won't say good or bad about it - I do know that it is different from pure copper. I've heard from some MOT testers in the UK who say it's great stuff. It is almost certainly not as reliable as honest-to-gosh Bundy tubing, and thus shouldn't be used on a race car.

I've received a lot of correspondence on this point. The pipe in question is called "Kunifer" or "90-10 Copper-Nickel". It's being used in lots of new cars of European manufacture; Volvo has used it since 1976. There are a couple of good online articles about it - here and here. (These links have a tendency to break - search under www.copper.org.) If you read through them, you'll see the the yield strength is good but lower, and the expansion rate under pressure is good but higher, than Bundy tubing, so I stand by my original statement - this stuff doesn't belong in a race car. It is probably perfectly fine for a street car.

I think my conclusion will be; Copper brake line might not be as strong as steel brake line, however it wont corrode as fast and for a street car it will do just fine!

Capsule

rr6pak · Post by **rr6pak** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 8:50 pm

Do what you want Capsule. Nothing is going on my car but either stainless, or the least minimum, oe brake lines

landon1 · Post by **landon1** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 4:04 am

ya i think that what i heard about old motorcycles having copper lines may have been the old european ones, actually....maybe america just never went for it....i'm not sayin either one is better or anything...idk, either way, these cars are 30+ years old, so it's a miracle that we can even talk about brake lines going on them...everything's gonna go bad on a car eventually...either way if i did a project like this (which i did on my dodge truck), i'd assume they'd last at least as long as i had it, so who cares lol...it'll all screw up sooner or later...stainless even has a chance of gettin nasty, doesn't it? it's just a matter of how much you want to spend and personal choice...hell my satellite has original brake lines and they're excellent...my dodge, i did them cuz it had been sitting for who knows how long and they were almost all good too, so if you can use original and last 30 some years, why change? i'd say what average age around here is 40 or so...that would mean if you did your car now, you'd be 70 by the time it'd need em again and by then, ul pry drive a lincoln and the mopar will sit as a time capsule

jk...mopar or no car

mopar71 · Post by **mopar71** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 12:53 pm

Just my 2 cents but it might be a heavy wall copper,like the L-grade in plumbing.the green on copper is not bad it is called patena, copper flashing on buildings used to get this.I know for a fact copper will be corroded by salt I work in the pharmaceutical industry and that is why we use stainless or pvc to transfer brine(salt water).