Penny Tech - brake line sheath replacement

[malcolmzilla]

If you keep a bike past 100 hours, your might notice the front brake line abrasion sheath wears through. Aside from that, most often the brake line is still quite serviceable, and a replacement to address the sheathing wear requires a whole new line at considerable cost.

As an experiment, I decided to try replacing the stock worn out sheath using nylon air brake line (3/8”) as a new sheath, available at any truck supply shop, often in a variety of colors, at about $2/ft or less. This line when unrolled straightened out almost perfect, and has a rubberized coating over the nylon inner tubing, plenty of wear surface and quite rigid.

Carefully remove the old sheath with a carpet hook type utility knife, any damage to the underlying brake line might fubar this whole exercise... Cut the air line to the exact length between the brake line crimp fittings where the old abrasion sheath was. Cut the air line to go over the brake line, to get a nice straight slot I fabricated a line cutter jig that retains a razor blade, you insert the air line and pull it through leaving a nice straight cut down it’s length (google Stacey David Gearz show fuel line slot tool).

Place the new abrasion sheath over the brake line in position, and check for fitment and orientate the slot in the lowest wear area. I was concerned that I’d have to use adhesive or remove the line and run some heat shrink tube over to retain it, but in my case it snapped on nice and firm and the lower fork guard clamp held it snug.

So far so good, 20 hours or so and it’s holding and wearing well.

No warranty is expressed or implied.

[Dobi]

nice jig, that is a killer solution now that I know I can get a Kawai green line

[cedric]

Nice one, my old dual sport could use this!

[axel99]

Nice, Thanks for posting