If Welder Series was a reality TV show, my dad and I would probably have been yelling at each other over the brake lines. But since there are no TV cameras in the shop, we didn't need to do that. We had slightly different ideas on how to run the front lines, with his being the more conventional way... with a twist. Instead of running the regular thru the frame fittings, we were going to weld a tube in the frame rails in the same spot as the thru frame fittings but it was going to have 1/8 NPT female threads in each end. The tube would be welded and ground flush to the sides of the rails, then regular brake fittings could attach right to the frame.
I have never enjoyed the look of flexible stainless brake lines curling their way to the frame rails. To me, they look as though the first person to run them like that did it because they were running out of time. It became the standard, and now a car looks great with hidden wiring, hidden turn signals, and brake lines hanging out in space.
At first when I proposed this idea, everyone said "no", but they didn't know why. "It's just not the way you run brake lines!" So, being the understanding and cooperative young man I am, I did it anyway. I'll go over the whole brake line system in this article, but it's the front lines that I'm most excited about.
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Out of the Wilwood calipers, I brought the braided line straight down to the tie rod. Note the little aluminum clamps that hold the union fitting to the tie rod.
The little aluminum clamps holds the 3/16 union fitting where I've turned the hex off (bottom one).
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To get to the frame, I used a tee fitting that is held by an aluminum clamp. Hard lines run along the top of the tie rod then a flexible stainless line goes parallel to the Pitman arm, under the Mullins box, and to the frame rail. This flex line will flex the most in the whole system, but it's still not moving as much as the line going from the caliper to the frame rail.
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I offset the T fitting towards the motor so that as you're walking up to the car, the frame rail hides it from your line of sight.
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Here is the end of the flexible line coming from under the steering box.
I used a Panhard tab as a line clamp... you can read that article here.
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I used flexible lines to hook up the master cylinder so if we decide to use a power booster later, it will be simple to move the master cylinder back. It also makes it much easier to drop down for servicing.
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I used 1/8NPT union fittings to connect the line to the residual valve to the proportioning valve. There's another Panhard tab holding the rear flex line. I don't have a picture of it, but I also swapped the drum cylinders left for right. This makes the fittings point forward instead of backwards.
That pretty much wraps up the brake line system. I had fun designing it and using some Welder Series parts along the way.
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Now you can see our Mustang II front end being assembled on YouTube! Click here to check it out . I broke the assembly down into four separate videos, and they're in order from 1-4. That's clever.
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