Diy: Hel Braided Brake Line Install

[PM-R33]

Here is a step by step DIY install for the Hel braided brake lines for a R33 GTST Skyline. The other models are very similar.

Items required

Rags

Plastic container to catch old brake fluid

Liquid thread paste/sealant

New brake fluid

WD40

Hammer

Flat head screwdriver

10mm spanner

14mm spanner

17mm spanner

12mm socket and shifter

Here are the braided brake lines as they come in the kit and opened up. As you will see you have two long lines for the front and two short lines for the rear. The fronts also have a movable mount along the line. The kit comes with four copper washers however for the R33 GTST I found there was no need for them as none of the fittings tighten up all the way to the end of the thread. Brake fluid will also be needed as you will lose all of your current brake fluid.

FRONT

After you have raised the car and taken the wheels off we can begin the install. I started with the drivers side front.

As you can see this is what the standard rubber brake line looks like on the front of the vehicle.

Spray all the fittings with WD40 and let is soak a bit to loosen up all the mounts.

Start by removing the mounting block half way along the lines with a 10mm spanner.

Next remove the rubber brake line from the hard line on the inside of the wheel arch with a 10mm spanner.

NOTE: Brake fluid will go everywhere so make sure you have a rag handy and possibly a container to catch all the fluid.

You can now slip out the rubber line from the bracket holding it on the wheel arch and place a container to capture all the fluid that will come out. The bracket itself can now be removed with a 12mm socket on the two bolts.

Next we can see the rest of the brake line as it comes into the brake calliper. Notice the rubber line finishes at a mounting bracket and then joins into a hard line that goes into the calliper itself. Once again spray everything with WD40.

Use a 10mm spanner to remove the hard line from the calliper and also to remove the hard line from the rubber line. Next you can remove the bracket with a 12mm socket.

Here you can see the entire rubber hard line and brackets removed from the vehicle.

The next step is to take off the brackets. This can be done with a hammer and flat head screwdriver and gently tapping the clip off the bracket as seen in the photo. Do this to both brackets. Now everything is removed.

NOTE: One of my bolts was seized in the calliper and extremely difficult to remove and I ended up rounding the nut off as seen in the photo, do not do this. I suggest using a special spanner as seen below instead of a normal open ended spanner to get a bit more grip on bolts and not do what i did... I eventually got the bolt out though.

Here we can see the difference between the factory brake line and the Hel braided item.

The next step is to put the bracket that goes onto the brake calliper on first. Simply use the hammer to tap the clip back onto the bracket on the rubber mount. There is a bit of a grove where the clip will go into. Only do one at this stage so you can move the line around easier.

We can now start to install the brake line onto the car. Apply some sealant onto the end of the thread (I used a liquid/gel thread sealant, don’t use a heavy duty Loctite or something) and begin to rotate the line into the calliper and tighten it with a 14mm spanner. This side must be done first as the fitting on this line does not rotate like the other side does.

Next mount the bracket back onto the calliper and run the rest of the line underneath everything back up towards where the other bracket goes.

Slip the remaining bracket back onto the line and once again gently tap the clip in with a hammer to lock it all together. Apply some thread sealant onto the thread and mount it back onto the hard line. Use the 10mm spanner to rotate the top of the bolt and a 17mm spanner to hold the top of the braided brake line to stop it from spinning. Now remount the bracket onto the inside of the wheel arch.

As you can see even with the washer in place, the thread doesn’t tighten all the way to the end, so the washer isn’t really needed on either side. This was the case on my car, perhaps others will be different.

You will notice the line is not mounted onto the middle stud and does hang loose a bit. I tested it out by rotating the front wheels and it doesn’t really come close to touching anything. If in doubt you can ziptie or mount it onto the protruding stud, I will do some driving around and check it but it should be fine the way it is.

That is all for the front, the finished product will look like this. Now simply repeat the same steps on the other side and then move to the rear.

REAR

The rear is a bit easier than the front I found.

Once again spray all the fittings with WD40 and let it soak in for a couple of minutes. This is what the rear lines will look like.

Now use a 10mm spanner to remove the hard line from the factory brake line on the inside of the wheel arch as you did on the front. Once again get some rags ready to clean up all the brake fluid.

As you can see the rear is a bit different as the bracket that holds the brake line onto the inside of the wheel arch can not be removed. Instead use a screwdriver to remove the clip as demonstrated in the picture. It is a bit trickier with it still on the car (hence why on the front I choose to remove it from the vehicle) but with a bit of force it will come off (watch your knuckles here!).

Now simply repeat the process as on the front by removing the hard line from the calliper and the middle mounting block. Here is the factory rear line next to the Hel braided line.

Note: This next choice is up to you. The bracket that mounts the middle mounting block on is not needed for the Hel braided brake line. You can leave it on or remove the two bolts and the bracket, I choose to remove it (weight saving!). Here you can see bracket and the line.

Now you can begin to install the Hel braided brake line. Once again apply some sealant onto the thread that goes into the calliper and mount it in place. You can see in the photo that once again the copper washer is not needed.

Now apply some sealant to the other end of the line and begin installing it back on the hard line on the wheel arch the same way as you did the front.

Simply tap the clip back onto the bracket and you are done!

Here is everything factory that was removed from the vehicle. As you can see there were a lot of bolts and brackets no longer needed. All up there is a probably a weight saving of maybe a bit over half a kilo

So there you go, fairly simple and straight forward as long as you take your time and don’t have seized bolts. Now refill your brake fluid and have the crappy job of bleeding all the air out of your brakes.

Cheers

Phil

[paulr33]

very detailed, well done and great work

[PM-R33]

One thing that I will mention; please, make sure all bolts are secured properly and check over them after a bit of a drive. Take it easy on the first drive just incase something goes wrong and you don't end up loosing all braking force. In case something does go wrong remember you can use your hand brake and engine braking to slow down.

The install is fairly easy over all and as long as you are handy with a spanner give it a go. Taking your time it is only a few hour job from start to finish, so put aside an afternoon to give it a go. However if you don't feel confident doing something like this take it to a mechanic!

Edited July 26, 2010 by PM-R33

[Astro Bear]

How do the brakes feel with the new gear? A firmer feeling pedal?

[TwoCents]

.

[TwoCents]

If your having trouble removing the standard brake lines, and if your not planning to use them again you can cut the metal tube just above the nut and you can then use a 10mm bit form a socket set or a 10mm ring spanner, makes life much easier. This saved my ass as i was starting to round off the top of a nut by using an adjustable spanner.

[WYTSKY]

How do the brakes feel with the new gear? A firmer feeling pedal?

Also want to know this.

Are there any performance gains with these or purely aesthetics?

good tut btw.

[DRFT_ceffy]

You will get a better braking feel as the rubber wont be expanding under pressure. This also will ensure more effective braking.

[Moodles2]

Insurance at the track too, rubber deteriorates over time and R32's are the most likely due to age, to burst a brake line.

[PM-R33]

How do the brakes feel with the new gear? A firmer feeling pedal?

Also want to know this.

Are there any performance gains with these or purely aesthetics?

good tut btw.

I havn't actually driven the car yet. I did the brake fluid yesterday and I figured while all the wheels were off i'd give them a good clean on the inside. I'll try to have it back together by the weekend and see how the brakes feel.

You will get a better braking feel as the rubber wont be expanding under pressure. This also will ensure more effective braking.

Insurance at the track too, rubber deteriorates over time and R32's are the most likely due to age, to burst a brake line.

That's exactly right. It's mainly an age thing, our brake lines are old and likely to expand a bit under heavy braking (or burst). Plus the benefit of having a life time warranty on them and I wanted to replace all my brake fluid so figured for the extra $100 off bucks might aswell replace the brake lines.

Edited July 28, 2010 by PM-R33

[PM-R33]

So I took the car for a spin and the brake pedal feel is soft as hell lol. As in there is about half of the pedal travel doing nothing.

I bled the system again and there is no air in the brake lines themselves, however my car has ABS and on the R33s (unlike the R32s) there are no bleed screws on the ABS module. My understanding with this is a special ABS scan tool is required to properly bleed the ABS so I will go see some one this week to try and get the ABS bled properly.

This is a very common problem with R33/R34's that have ABS and there appears to be hundreds of threads on very soft brake pedals. So I'm assuming it's because people get air into the ABS unit and then never bleed it properly.

Will report back on this to see how it goes after the ABS bleed.

[WYTSKY]

lol interested in the outcome as I was thinking of doing this to the car ( i have abs too)

gl, hope it works out.

[PM-R33]

I got them back to normal, bled the lines coming in and out of the ABS unit and bled the lines coming out of the master cylinder. There must have a been some air trapped somewhere. All good now

[Hanaldo]

How do you bleed those lines Phil?

[PM-R33]

I just got the missus to hold the brake pedal 3/4 down, cracked one of the lines and let the fluid come out a bit (have a rag handy as it goes everywhere since it aint a proper bleed nipple) and then closed it off before the brake pedal went down to the ground. So really just a quick crack open and then close. Repeat that a few times.

Did that to all the lines; two coming out from the master cylinder, two going into the ABS and the three coming out of the ABS. Aint perfect but meh.

Make sure you use one of those flare spanners though so you don't round the nuts.

The pedal is back to being normal and not as soft as it was. It still aint as stiff as I would like it but maybe it is just a Skyline thing, I dunno. I felt my mates non ABS model R33 tonight and his was softer than mine so its strange. I would love to get the pedal to be stiff as hell like our Mazda 3 but I don't really understand why the Skyline pedal is so soft.

Have a read of this, I just posted this link into the group buy thread.

http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/mastercylin...adjustment.html

Could this be done to adjust the pedal softness?

Edited August 4, 2010 by PM-R33

[Hanaldo]

Great, thanks mate! Will give this a go next week...

As for adjusting the master cylinder, it seems like a lot of effort? I'm sure it would work as you want it to (although maybe make a note of where the pushrod is set before you adjust it, just in case it doesn't work), so if you're willing to go through the effort then go for it. Just that it seems like a hell of a lot of effort just for a few cms of play?

[Hanaldo]

By the way, how much brake fluid did you need?

[PM-R33]

Only one of those Motul bottles for the entire system. Still had some remaining.

[Hanaldo]

Oh real, sweet I've got two bottles of the exact same stuff, almost bought three lol.

Gonna give this a go next week when my coilovers arrive, will install em all at the same time.

Edited August 6, 2010 by Hanaldo

[jiffo]

Ensure your braided lines comply first.

Each State probably has different rules.