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I'm also guessing here, but would think that whatever type of
steel is used would have to meet certain safety standards to make it suitable
for brakeline material. They don't just buy whatever happens to be on special
this month & make brake lines out of it. Since, as someone stated,
copper is outlawed in Canada because it doesn't meet those
standards.
John
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 10:28
AM
Subject: IML: brake line material?
Dick, there is a huge range of steel alloys for both stainless
and standard
steel, so it hard to compare without any info of what exact
material is
used for either application. However, by handling brake
lines myself and
feeling how "easy" they bend, it does not appear that any
special strength
steel is used (of course, I am guessing here!). It
really feels like cheap
mild steel. Again, I would not be surprised
if the pipe stresses due to
pressure are only a very small fraction of the
strength of the softest
steel. You need a design factor of 2-3 or so
for fatigue considerations,
but beyond that, it may be needless
overdesign. If that's the case, it
might be better in terms of
long-term safety and reliability to use a more
corrosion resistant
material and sacrifice some possibly unnecessary
strength. Also, I
would guess that the brake line manufacturers have done
these calculations
and tests before they offer a product to the market. On
the other
hand, the aftermarket industry in the US is of such low quality,
that
mistrust is not unjustified!
Again, there is nothing wrong of being
over-cautious, at least till you get
all the numbers and facts in front of
you. Especially when you drive one
of these older cars with only one
hydraulic circuit.
D^2
At 09:43 AM 6/2/2002 -0700, you
wrote:
>I agree that stainless steel is nice stuff to use, but I'm not
sure it has
>the same strength as the tubing the OEM specified.
I'd tread with caution
>in making any changes away from approved brake
tubing. Perhaps someone with
>some strength of materials data
would look this stuff up. Problem with
>these descriptions
("copper, steel, stainless") is that we don't know the
>alloy (for
steel or stainless) or the heat treat history of these materials,
>and
I'm paranoid about venturing too far away from what I know is
approved
>for brake service.
>
>Dick
Benjamin
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