NB - Hydraulic brakes on trailer

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benniejordaan

Sealiner
The Hydraulic lines on my trailer are mild steel and corroded through resulting in brake failure - started pissing oil while towing to the harbour. Fortunately there no traffic at 5 in the morning.
Make sure who ever builds your trailer uses copper pipes!
 
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FLUKE

Sealiner
Just be careful, you get a annealed copper that is used in refridgeration which is not suitable for a brake line.
You need the Copper/Nickel brake pipe that is about R90/mtr and while it has better corrosion resistance it is still not going to last forever when constantly emersed in Sea Water. Not all brake pipe suppliers will stock this so be careful.
 
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shagnrelease

Sealiner
benniejordaan wrote:
The Hydraulic lines on my trailer are mild steel and corroded through resulting in brake failure - started pissing oil while towing to the harbour. Fortunately there no traffic at 5 in the morning.
Make sure who ever builds your trailer uses copper pipes!
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Your kidding??

geez mate sorry to hear that, its annoying when you pay top dollar for shoddy workmanship.

did you get on the water at least bud?
 
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benniejordaan

Sealiner
shagnrelease wrote:
benniejordaan wrote:
The Hydraulic lines on my trailer are mild steel and corroded through resulting in brake failure - started pissing oil while towing to the harbour. Fortunately there no traffic at 5 in the morning.
Make sure who ever builds your trailer uses copper pipes!
Click to expand...
Your kidding??

geez mate sorry to hear that, its annoying when you pay top dollar for shoddy workmanship.

did you get on the water at least bud?
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I actually complained about the lines before... Fell on deaf ears unfortunately . Lucky this happened very close to the club.

We did get on the water. Ran to the Deep drop offs all the way to 1000m but nothing. Just one hell of a ride home...
 
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CraigT

New member
I find that the master cylinder rusts very quickly on my hydraulic brakes. The calliper on my trailer is a standard Toyota Hi-ace so not to expensive to replace just a pain in the butt to replace on a regular basis.
Anybody got any ideas as to prolong the life of the master cylinders.
 
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benniejordaan

Sealiner
CraigT wrote:
I find that the master cylinder rusts very quickly on my hydraulic brakes. The calliper on my trailer is a standard Toyota Hi-ace so not to expensive to replace just a pain in the butt to replace on a regular basis.
Anybody got any ideas as to prolong the life of the master cylinders.
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I will need to pull everything apart now any way to see what's potting. My brakes seemed to be working fine right upto when they failed on Sunday morning. I will take a look to check their condition.
 
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benniejordaan

Sealiner
FLUKE wrote:
Just be careful, you get a annealed copper that is used in refridgeration which is not suitable for a brake line.
You need the Copper/Nickel brake pipe that is about R90/mtr and while it has better corrosion resistance it is still not going to last forever when constantly emersed in Sea Water. Not all brake pipe suppliers will stock this so be careful.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I'll make sure I get the right stuff.
 
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benniejordaan

Sealiner
Copper pipes fitted right through. All new fittings including copper Tees. Rebuilt the brake calipers, new disks and pads. Stripped the springs and re-greased with spray white marine grease.

Ready to roll again.

attachment.php
 
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Emjay

New member
You could try taking the master cylinder to a machine shop and ask them to bore out the cylinder and resleeve it with stainless steel. I did that to the master cylinder on my BMW bike and it worked like a bomb. The machine shop guys will be able to tell you if there is enough "meat" on the cylinder walls to accommodate boring it out.
 
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benniejordaan

Sealiner
Emjay wrote:
You could try taking the master cylinder to a machine shop and ask them to bore out the cylinder and resleeve it with stainless steel. I did that to the master cylinder on my BMW bike and it worked like a bomb. The machine shop guys will be able to tell you if there is enough "meat" on the cylinder walls to accommodate boring it out.
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Nothing wrong with the cylinders. It was the pistons. It wash cheaper to buy new pistons @ R217-00 + VAT
 
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Foxhat

Senior Member
Why is it not possible to use flexible hydraulic HP piping with S/S swagerlock couplings, the same as we all use in industry. Why do we have to use something called brake piping?
 
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FLUKE

Sealiner
Foxhat wrote:
Why is it not possible to use flexible hydraulic HP piping with S/S swagerlock couplings, the same as we all use in industry. Why do we have to use something called brake piping?
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Brake pipes have a small ID and very little stretch. The small ID makes bleeding the brakes much easier. Very few(if any) industrial pipes have an internal ID that is as small as the 3mm or 1/8" of a brake pipe.

The option you do have is to use the high performance brake pipes that have a teflon core and S/S braid re-inforcing. There is one of the brands that use S/S fittings on the end.

Using an industrial hose will possibly result in very spongy brakes and a sharp insurance assessor may just pick it up if the trailer were involved in an accident.

 
 
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benniejordaan

Sealiner
Probably one of the best options I reckon... But it would be hellish expensive. Those flexible lines cost R250 each for a 500mm long sections connecting to the calipers (4 off) and R450 for a 1m sections (2 off). But I think the copper for the rest will work fine and will last. I have also coated everything generously with multiple coats of tectyl.

On a boat that weighs in at 3 tons, it's not worth playing games. The right stuff or nothing.
 
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FishExcutnr

Sealiner
same issue with ours (la AXEL) .... dam gonna have to do the same on the 760 trailer before they go pop which will not be pretty as its a big rig
 
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thika

Sealiner
Not trying to be funny here....

But my cable drum brakes still work well after 4 years in and out the salt, all stainless fittings though, as originally supplied by whoever built the trailer for Ace Craft Marine in 1993

I rinse the rims and drums even before I rinse the motors or anything else and I do it for a LOOOOOONG time from both out- and inside

My towhitch coupler pushthrough whachanameit gets very tight though and needs to be greased as we speak
 
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FishExcutnr

Sealiner
Big rigs need hydrolic brakes, air brakes would be even better. Would not dare tow the boat without, those la axels are a life saver and i depend on them. Once forgot to put them on , came down hellshoogte and all the jeeps disk brakes where a right off.. You murder you cars brakes without them.

when i hit the brakes, the trailer stops the car!

I rinse the axels and brakes every time caring for them like a child.

Now just need to do a copper pipe replacement and than gonna do the entire service like bennie in a years time, so every two years.
 
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benniejordaan

Sealiner
FishExcutnr wrote:
Big rigs need hydrolic brakes, air brakes would be even better. Would not dare tow the boat without, those la axels are a life saver and i depend on them. Once forgot to put them on , came down hellshoogte and all the jeeps disk brakes where a right off.. You murder you cars brakes without them.

when i hit the brakes, the trailer stops the car!

I rinse the axels and brakes every time caring for them like a child.

Now just need to do a copper pipe replacement and than gonna do the entire service like bennie in a years time, so every two years.
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One thing I would suggest. even though the disks are cheap to replace, consider skimming the old ones rather. The old ones are solid disks and the new ones are now ventilated. I think they will rot from the inside out.

@ Thika, on my previous boats with drum brakes. The first thing I did was open them up and strip every part out. Then I had every part electro plated and well greased with temperature resistant grease before re fitting. Never had a problem either.

There is 1 flaw with the LA axles. That is the discs. You can do a lot of preventative measure to protect everything. I painted every metal part of the calipers with Hammerite then Tectyl over everything including inside the brake pistons. But this doesnt happen when the builder assembles the trailer. Also, you have to remove the hub to get to the disc. I would have prefered being able to get the disk off from the front so I dont need to bomb all the oil and potentially risk damaging the bearings an seals. Re-filling with oil is also a PITA. Each axle takes around 5 ltrs and you do this through a 8mm hole.
 
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