Std rubber vs SS braided teflon front caliper flexible brake lines (1 Viewer)

[sunrk]

With regard to the front brake calipers specifically, do you folks thing factory standard rubber flexible brake lines or SS braided teflon flexible brake lines are better for regular driving with probaly 80 pct on-road and 20 pct or less off-road?

I run std rubber flexible lines front and rear but have SS braided lines from chassis to each axle fitting (where it splits to the left and right caliper line on each axle housing).

How well do the SS braided teflon coated flexible lines stand up to a lot of continual movement with the turning of the swivel hubs (and therefore the front calipers) with respect to the 'fixed' nature of the axle housing itself?

Craig

 

[inkpot]

I have worked on a lot of rigs over 25 years old and over 300,000 miles, and their OEM rubber brake lines worked just fine. Unless you spend a lot of time driving thru heavy brush and small trees, why worry about SS lines?

 

[sunrk]

I went SS braided for the chassis to axle ones because of lift as standard lines for those two locations are too short.

 

[nukegoat]

I like stainless braided lines because I can get them with -3 fittings

 

[Corbet]

I’ve had SS lines in place for 100,000 miles. Did not notice any difference. Will buy standard OEM if they need replacement.

 

[morganism]

Is more important to double the length, makes it easy to pull the calipers and hang them up, when servicing hubs and knuckles.
There is a connector out there that allows you to connect two standard lengths, so you can have braided at the wheel, and rubber at the chassis.

 

[sunrk]

Interesting - never thought of doing something like that. The thread connections are a pretty standard one I think (a fine pitch metric?).

Aftermarket brake lines have to be ADR compliant (Aus equiv of US DOT rules) to not invalidate rego and insurance here and not all braided brake lines comply as they have to be 'type approved' to be permitted for on-road use. The 'HEL' branded ones apparently are now (don't quote me!), and there are a bunch of places that make custom brake lines (Superior Engineering in QLD Australia gets them made up to order).

I have Superior Eng's custom braided lines for my chassis to axle brake connections due to the lift.

 

[jonheld]

OEM brake lines all day long.
Toyota makes longer soft lines for the axle drops. IIRC from a T100. Proper length for a 4" lift.
Double length caliper lines seems like a pretty bad idea to me. Just asking for damage, and there's no issue hanging a caliper with an OEM line.

 

[JeepinPete]

Rubber lines. They take an incredible amount of abuse and last darn near forever. The only advantage I can see in SS lines is resistance to being sliced.

 

[yellowgeko]

It’s funny how times change. I remember when I first found this site reading about how stainless were the only way to go. Firmer pedal, Better durability. Etc.

The only constant is change.

 

[Tools R Us]

It’s funny how times change. I remember when I first found this site reading about how stainless were the only way to go. Firmer pedal, Better durability. Etc.

The only constant is change.

Or, could be that users learn with time and experience? Have had much more problems with SS lines than stock type lines.