Replacing brake lines

[rhall]

Has anyone done any extensive replacement of brake lines on their gen1 Insight? I found a second Insight for a good price but the brake lines are very corroded. I took it out onto a safe country road and tested the brakes with several emergency stops. Sure enough I burst a line below the 12v battery box. The previous owner had kept the car very clean but I don't think he had ever washed the engine compartment and the Toronto salt had seriously eaten the brake lines on the firewall. I'm thinking about replacing them all with OEM Honda lines which might be $300-400. Can anyone give me a heads-up on how difficult this would be using only jackstands?

[gilbertguy]

There was a thead a couple of months back for a bad brake line, they ordered it from Honda and said it went right in no issues. They did it them selves so guessing it was on jack stands.

[bluesunbeam]

Hi Rhall ,
Though i have not replaced all the brake pipes i have replaced the most difficult one to get at -this runs from the the left rear wheel up and behind the petrol tank and all the to the front of the car and this was done using jackstands. I had to replace it due to serious corrosion that had attacked the pipe well above the section that has the protective plastic sleeve on it and in fact the rotted area was quite difficult to see just with a casual look -the pipe was OK for about 6 inches after the plastic sleeve and then there is obviously an area that is a moisture trap where corrosion is more likely (or the brake pipe surface finish was faulty).
I considered buying a proper Honda brake pipe but rejected the idea because it will just corrode like the original one and in the end i used cupro nickel pipe and just made the brake line up myself .
The whole job was very time consuming due to several factors.
A) The brake pipe i had to do was concealed behind the fuel tank and i ended up dropping the tank-it may be possible to do it without taking the tank out but i found it too difficult. By the way, the manual tells you to remove the muffler to get the tank out ;i dont know why as the tank dropped out quite easily with a small amount of jiggling with the muffler still in place-maybe the UK cars are different to others in this area.
B) Honda have fitted a nice tidy mounting system to run the pipes from front to back (check manual to see how they unclip ) but all the original pipes have a plastic sheath around them that increase their diameter so the cupro nickel one i fitted would not clip back in . I ended up wrapping insulation tape around the pipe where it should clip in to make it fit .
C) Even with the original pipe as a pattern long runs of brake pipe are a challenge to get right especially with the mounting system Honda use (not much room to 'lose' excess pipework) . I ended up putting a joint in where the pipe runs down the right hand wheelarch just so things were not quite so critical .
In summary this could be a long job but given the road conditions you endure it is probably worth the effort to put cupro nickel pipes on if you intend to keep your car long term .
One last point ,if you do make your own brake pipes up dont forget to put the unions on BEFORE you flare the second pipe end -if you do forget it makes you shout a lot .

[rhall]

Thanks for your detailed response bluesunbeam. I don't think I have to go all the way to the back. The burst pipe is the one under the battery box and other pipes in the firewall area are bad. The pipes to the rear seemed to have escaped serious corrosion for some reason but I will be looking at them more closely when I get back to the job in a couple of weeks. I'll post my results. I intend to start with the burst one and go from there as needed.

I did look into the quality of the lines. There seem to be three levels: steel, polymer coated steel and the much more expensive nickel-copper. I think I'll go for the mid grade as I have never flared tubing before and am afraid the nickel-copper tube might be difficult to work with.

This car came from the salty streets of Toronto. The previous owner's big mistake, in my opinion, is that he never washed the engine compartment and the salt sat on all the components year round, year after year. I have heard you are not supposed to wash the engine compartment because of the hybrid voltage but I have sprayed off mine many times. But if you are worried you can throw the power off at the back.

From my experience with this car I would strongly recommend the engine compartment be washed in the spring if it has seen salt. Remember to take off the engine beauty cover and to spray the firewall liberally.