(Part 1 update is here)
The past couple of days I've been laying out the brake lines, using the purpose-made kit for the Land Rover Series 2 by Automec. I've never used a kit before, so before I give any comments please understand I'm no expert. These are just my subjective impressions. Someone who knows what they're doing could have a completely different view. In sum, here's what I think:
Good points: Very nicely prepared lines, excellent quality, nice materials.
Things I'd like to see done differently: First, much better instructions (it was only thanks to 3 Brothers Classic Rovers that a layout diagram, from the workshop manuals/parts catalogue was included). The kit could really use a detailed instruction manual, saying clearly where the lines should go, where it should be fastened to the frame, the curve radius of the tube where necessary. I scoured the web and thankfully found some photos of an almost completely original 1958 Series 2 that provided a lot of information, plus an illustration in a Land Rover sales brochure that was nicely detailed in a way that clearly showed that a photo had been used as the source. My own original chassis showed where the clips should go.
I'll make the diagrams for Automec, if they like.
Secondly, tube lengths. Without a detailed instruction manual or photos, I think the average user would have a hard time making things join up in a neat and certifiably safe way. Nothing impossibly wrong, and it may come down to model variations, but some tubes appeared too short, some too long, no matter how you looked at it. The photos below will help illustrate this. In the pictures, I've used tie-wraps to hold the lines in place while they are test-fitted.
In this view, all's well here, for the most part. Some radii are more pronounced than photos would suggest they should be, but really that's all.
In this view, there is a tube which passes underneath the gearbox (visible just under the prop-shaft UJ), and should be attached to the rear of the cross member. On my original chassis, the clips that hold the lines in place indicate very clearly where. This line is too short and you really have to count the millimeters to get it to fit back there, plus make its way to the front-left brake flex hose. This isn't helped by not having a reference point as to where the 5-way connection shoud be placed. I sort of had to average everything out, in the end, and the connection ended up a centimeter or two from where it was installed on the original chassis. Would have been nice to have a precise starting point location for the whole brake line project.
Here you can see that it fits, but only just. Two or three inches more would have made a big difference, in both accuracy and comfort. As it is the pipe will easily end up laying again the flanges of the cross member, which could promote friction and perhaps leakage or breakage at some future point. To help prevent this, a protective anti-chafe plastic tubing will be placed over the pipe as it goes across the cross member. The pipe looks a little wavey as it passes under, because it has to clip to the cross member in three places, while curving over the flange to get to the clip (clip not installed yet, here).
In this view, the pipe from the rear brake flex tube to the 5-way connector. Here, the pipe was too long, by any standard, if you were going for the original routing. This was solved by making the rather exaggerated upward curve between the flex tube and cross member. This pipe could use about 3 inches off, if it was to be shaped accurately as per the original factory pipe.
The forward-right pipe fit just perfectly, once the 5-way connector location was established. Before then, the size of the radius as it leaves the flex tube made a big difference as to where it ended along the chassis rail (as it did on the other side, as well).
On the rear axle, one pipe was too long, one was too short. I think this may be because whatever particular Land Rover was used as the template for the kit had a mounting point for the 3-way connection further towards the top of the differential. The long pipe was quite at its limit, to have it attach to the pipe-protection bracket. I would have liked to have both sides have matching radii in their curves, just from an aesthetic point of view. Right now, it may look, to people behind me in traffic, that I don't know how to measure brake pipes!
None of this is really a big deal, as the pipes do fit (well, haven't tried the ones from master cylinders yet!), and the materials quality is excellent, but if you're trying to be extremely authentic, enjoy symetry, or need to know if the way you're installing is at least the way the kit makers intended it to be, this kit can be a little frustrating. However, if you don't have the means (or want) to make your own brake lines, then this kit will do the job.
