F/51 LRS

The PPI I had done on the car recommended I replace the old soft lines on my c4. So, thought I would tackle this job this weekend.

I bought new stainless braided lines and made sure I had my flare nut wrenches at the ready and was ready to do it.

Then, since my car lived all of its 27 years in Minnesota, the ugly truth reared its head. I ended up having to replace all the caliper-stainless braided hard lines.

Not a big deal, picked some up locally, bent them and installed them.

The problem came when I was doing the right rear, however. The inner hard line that runs the length of the car has a stripped head which I can't seem to get loose no matter what I do.

I'm planning on pulling the under trays tomorrow and replacing the entire line the whole length of the car.

Is this something I would be able to do with standard lines from the auto parts store?

Should I just do all the lines since all the factory ones could stand to be renewed?

I'm going to bleed everything BUT the locks because I don't have access to a hammer at the moment and wasn't expecting to run into this problem. Will any of this cause issues with that?

Any help and advice would be fantastic.

Thanks,
Joe

raffsracing

The hard line in question is still available from Porsche. You could als try Auto Atlanta.

JasonAndreas

Have you tried cutting the soft line with a dremel or hacksaw and then using a regular 6-sided socket to loosen and separate the two?

F/51 LRS

I'm hoping to finish today since I'm flying out of town tomorrow for the week for work. We are then having an open house Saturday and I'd like to not have the car up on jack stands. But if needs must, then I'll just order OEM.

My main concern at this point is reassembly. The hard line is so boogered up I won't reuse it even when I do get it all apart.

Goughary

That hard line doesn't run the length of the car. It is short and runs to a T connector located just after the tunnel in the rear up under the car on the drivers side...easy enough to fit a bent length of pipe from napa...and then later fit maybe an oem hard line if you want to clean it up - but this won't be a tough job either way. If the transaxle tray has been on the car, that t connector won't likely be seized...

F/51 LRS

Looking at auto Atlanta, the line that's giving me issues connects to the brake distributor and is relatively short.

So, in theory I should be able to get an appropriate line in place and not have to route it all the way to the booster.

FeralComprehension

I believe that the stock lines are cunifer, whereas what you're likely to get at NAPA are coated steel. Think about this carefully, else you could be looking at these again in a few years.

Spyerx

see below diagram, should be fine with right flare + length + a bender. Hopefully it unscrews at the "T" ok :-) There is only 1 line running to the rear. These cars have a 3 channel ABS, 2 front, 1 rear.

F/51 LRS

Thanks Spyerx, that's the diagram I looked at this morning on Auto Atlanta. Additionally, I keep reading about "bubble flares", but have found there are single bubble, double bubble, standard flare, etc...

These are what was available locally compared to what I pulled from the car. Any feedback on the type of flare? Any issues I may run into?

Thanks again for everyone's help.

Spyerx

you need to do the factory flare.
what you're showing is a SAE flare
You need regular, iso bubble flare
http://www.fedhillusa.com/webnuts/common%20flares6.pdf

https://www.amazon.com/OTC-4504-Stin...=otc+flare+kit

F/51 LRS

Another interesting turn of events.

These are the front lines I took off yesterday (caliper to soft line).




Then these are the two ends of the soft line to "T" that I just took off the rear.



Seems someone at some point put standard flares on the front of the car, which is what I put on yesterday because they matched.

Guess it's time to head back to the sore to re-buy all new lines.

Caveat emptor and all that, I guess.

Spyerx

Ugh.

F/51 LRS

my thoughts exactly. What are your thoughts on this bend? Too sharp, or should be good?

Updating the lines to nickel-copper.

apanossi

Maybe a hair too sharp.

Goughary

Looks like a kink to me . I would expect that to function , but that side brake will have a slightly different bias to the other side of the rear...