Keeping you in my prayers to Yehovah God.
Bob
A couple of days ago I replaced all the rusted out brake lines on my truck. 2002 Silverado and this is at least the third time they have had to be done. Master cylinder was bad too but that’s a different issue. I have had brake likes blow out on many vehicles over my many years. Admittedly Michigan road salt is the main factor but still, they have build thousands of dollars of safety mandates into vehicles including ABS in my time and yet brake lines are still normally steel tubes that corrode. Used to be all kinds of stainless trim on cars. Why not stainless brake lines?
I always by-pass the ABS. I don’t like that at all.
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You can buy stainless when you buy the replacement lines. It just costs more. I didn’t bother on my 2005 because I simply don’t drive on the roads enough to justify it. But it was an option.
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Use the nickel copper alloy, it bends by hand and lasts forever. Most European cars use it. Not significantly more expensive, worth it if you plan to keep the vehicle. I redid our Suburban’s brake and fuel lines with it.
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What Chris said here, that stuff will never rust away
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I just put the junk steel lines back on because the truck has 300 K on it and I had to put a new floor in it in front of the drivers seat, but yes, if I were planning on it running for much longer I’d use the lines you recommended. Still my question is, why aren’t they required when the vehicle is being built?
Can’t make money for repairs that are safety related if it doesn’t fail/break. Or frustration sets in and dump 80,000 on a new rig every 2-5 years to keep up with the Jones next door. The automotive industry as a whole banks on failures of parts JUST outside of warrenty to get the fish hooks back in your wallet. The vast majority of people would not blink an eye to swipe there plastic-fix-all-i-dont-have-to-pay-for-it regularly to have a “safe” daily driver. And most are non the wiser to how many shops and dealer are full of scam artist articulating there skills to insurance companys for every penny they can pinch. Ergo manufactures proprietary computer monitoring, small town shop has to turn away the work back to the dealer or pony up the 10,000$ for a laptop to scan a specific engine. It’s a big wool over the eyes trick. Those here on this forum are a dying breed of fix it yourself and make it better, we arnt the ones getting scammed here. But many of our friends, family are. Steve can attest to this as well having put in the dear hours of hard work to learn the newest systems and problems year after year as manufactures constantly made it more difficult for an auto or diesel tech to keep a job in a small shop, or be forced to go work for the crooked dealerships where the tooling is provided and computer prints out the step by step how to repair guidelines a trained monkey could follow
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Who would require the free market to do something like that?
What you are seeing is deregulation at work. Corporations exist to maximize profits. There is much more profit in having you replace those lines than building them to last forever.
I don’t know where those dealerships are my brother worked at many a different GM and Chrysler dealerships around here for a couple of decades in the 80s and 90s. The amount of his paycheck he had to spend for tool for his work was mind boggling and not very different from my best friend who has done the same thing working at indepent shops. Being a mechanic today in the automotive sector is a sure way to own the biggest tool box in town.
I worked as an industrial technician and controls engineer. My friends in the automotive industry couldn’t believe it when I told them a screw driver and set of Allen wrenches and a simple multimeter would fix 90% of all problems on production lines. But the reality is profits dictate both design approaches. It is not profitable to make it more complicated to fix equipment you personally own so the production lines that build the cars are simple as possible to work on. It is profitable to fix other people’s property so the vehicles those lines make are designed to maximize those profits. Which is one reason I never designed consumer goods only production equipment where I could design for longevity and simplicity.
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There are truths in what you both have said Norman and Dan.
But here are some more factors affecting the design of vehicles:
The physical space of the package.
The expectations of ultimate service life of the users base.
Aircraft; most power equipment, and small boats have the same small space packaging requirements making for shit-space serviceability too. Then forcing specialty tools to service.
An ocean going ship they want to keep in service for decades. Even commercial fishing boats have a lot of upgraded materials to have decades service lives.
When i was a kid being bussed to school the Districts that could, would buy the better brands of buses and keep them in service for 30+ years.
Then somewhere in the 80’s Washington State law changed that the Districts mandatorily had to retire from use school buses at 10 years, no matter what.
Consequences?
The better school bus makers had to choose to go bankrupt or make cheaper buses to sell into Washington State. No reward for making better, more durable then. We all equalized down to Communist shit-quality.
So, no. I strongly do NOT favor, “Their aught to be a Law!”
The laws chasing ultimate lowest numbers games are the biggest reason vehicles in real adjusted dollars are far more expensive than back in the 60’s and 70’s.
And STILL rusting steel brake lines.
When the car manufacturers got into published lowest maintenance wars back in the 90’s . . surprise, surprise we finally stated getting SS alloyed exhaust systems. (Along with fudged up 5,000-7,500 mile recommended oil changes)
Ha! For about 5-7 years there if you wanted to buy new with the now durable exhaust systems, you bought Chrysler/Dodge. The others including the Japanese then playing catch-up.
So Subaru lovers? How well do Subaru brake line hold up on your snow-bunny-cars?
Reward the manufacturers that closest give you what you want. You will always have something weak to have to compensate for.
For all of the grief of auto-teching IF you built-up and maintained your own tools; including electronic; you could work anywhere, anytime. I only stopped early at 55 because of my memory problems. Too many head thumps earlier life I figure.
S.U.
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Ouch. 12 hours and no one is doing summer things to bury my too-long of last post!!??
Honestly fellows I make Plans. And they always seem to need lots of adjusting when on the ground.
My wife’s insisted, bought: WILL LEAK pool was supposed to work in this little hollow spot . . . I figured.
Nope. Low edge caved. Now I’ll have to drain it and move down 20-30 feet farther out to a true flat spot.
The push mower in the back ground is my favorite composite made up. A bought cheap new Yardman just for the Honda engine. Three years later after the plastic wheels were shot; transfer mounted this Honda engine to this all metal 20 year old high wheel with ball bearing wheels. The OHC Honda engine has a larger diameter shaft of much tougher steel than the previous Tecumseh’s and Briggs and Stratton’s. I was bending crankshaft extension out rough mowing my corners and under brush rock-fields. Only so many times I could hammer bend those bent shafts back. Safety - it was not.
Reverse mounting puts the spark plug in back, protected, safe. Transfers weight back for easier tip and turning.
So above I said to reward the manufactures who do will design and build for durability and least maintenances.
10 years on this engine now and it still started up first pull after having sat all winter, after it’s tip-dump-out oil change.
The easiest engines and equipment to work on are the ones that just do not demand it.
S.U.
( yeah. I are a gear head addict, alright. Have to hear an engine working at least every 2-3 days or I go to twitching)
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Ya that twitch is a hard one to get rid of for a gearhead…wife’s car, v10 dodge, weed eater, tinker with chainsaw all today. Tinkered bagging up some dry wood and relaxed with a cold Rainier in the hammock enjoying the sunshine for a bit. Remember that scene in Joe dirt? The one where his childhood swing set snapped? Ya…need a new hammock 
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Well I spent my Saturday replacing the front cover gasket on the Buick so now it isn’t leaking coolant. Speed sensor I replaced doesn’t seem to be helping. Speedometer still glitching out. Probably wiring. Seems like either the motor mounts or the CV axles need replaced, shuddering on takeoff.
Got my Mazda back in action, changed the oil with a pint of Lucas, two quarts of 15w40 Diesel oil and 10w40 high mileage. Doesnt have catalytic converters anymore so I don’t need to worry about. Manual calls for heavy stuff for the summer. 20w50 at highest in a little 4 banger from Japan. I hope that mitigates the smoking until I get her rebuilt.
Also patched the hole in the top rib of the radiator with some good ole lead-tin solder and water weld putty for good measure. Gotta love the old brass radiators.
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The lord works in obvious ways sometimes. Needed to find another car for wife. Hard to find anything good in our price range. So went out to look at a car yesterday. Was more than we wanted to spend, and wasnt really the ideal car. Well called the guy to say were on the way, where are you, and no answer. Twice called no answer. So in our wanderings passed a car for sale. It was better fit for us, less money, and was spotless rust free florida car! Win !! And to boot, has the smoothest quietest running engine Ive heard in a long time.
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To much to do getting the garden ready to do much else this time of year. Been living in the woods for the last 25 years Steve. No grass. I can put all those hours walking around behind a lawn mower into something actually useful.
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Ha! Ha! Hey TomH,
It ain’t about the grass at all.
It’s about the engine. Being forced by growing grass to keep an engine, easy-start up and running all of these last ~50+ some-odd years.
You said garden. My agility to pull out of storage and get the walk-behind tiller running-working in three pulls was from the decades of lawn mowers experiences.
These real power needs have similarity:
Lawn-grass mowing; garden power tilling; water pumping; hydraulic power wood splitting; and small electrical generating.
ALL done with small single cylinder air cooled pull starting.
Road-warrior even down to four cylinders will not give the experiences needed. Circle track, circuit racing, drag racing will not teach the right lessons. Racing is racing.
Off-road motorcycling or ORVing or power snow sledding will not either.
Hmm. I missed walk-behind snow blowing . . . Yep, that counts.
It is the ability to best-practices set-aside an engine. Months later, take that set aside engine, and be up and constant loaded working handily for hours and hours that counts.
No frigging ignition points under a have to remove flywheel cut it anymore.
Overhead valve, four stroke, naturally aspirated are the way to go.
Fuel use economy. You are doing all the buying and supplying. You are right there breathing in the exhausts, up close and personal. So out with stinking flat-head engines too.
Anyhow. Starting back at 12-13 yo having to get running; keep running, lawn mowers has made me the best practical engine man I can be.
AND still walking behind these things has kept me upright ,walking and talking, here near 70 yo. (Oh, yes. I do grab a shopping cart now too for my stores walking too now)
No gyms sweating for me though.
Regards
Steve Unruh
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I’ve always had more trouble with those little engines than with car or motorcycle. I don’t know why. I watched this the other day. I could build a small block Chevy easier than this but it was pretty interesting anyway. I’m pretty sure the only reason I’m still pumping air today is that they didn’t have superchargers or Nitrous for motorcycles in the 60’s and 70’s.
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Yes Redbeard has some pretty neat builds for sure. As you said small engines are the most finiky of them all. A clogged primary jet on a 4barell holy will still start with that electric assist ( hard start and obviously have issues running) those damn pull ropes will put a whooping on anyone. When you get tired of pulling the rope you figure out why it won’t start faster I won’t lie, my frustrations sometimes out weight my time to get a yard project done so the can of you-will-start comes out to speed the process.i have a plethora of small engines around all the time, neighbor’s drop them off to be fixed, I pick them up on the side of the road a lot. Both riding mowers I have now we’re freebies, one I’ll use in just a minute here. Brakes were rusted locked in place and if left overnight engine is filled with gas. Had the brake free before I unloaded it from the truck, disassemble the carb to confirm float was stuck filling the engine. Crappy design of plastic in the carb was the real problem. Reassemble with fuel shut off in line and been running it for 2 years mows the grass real nice, loan it out to the neighbors to mow there field frequently. Ya the tires are dry rotted and leak out in a day but eh it was free and cuts the grass and I got to tinker with it so it’s all fun to me!
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My dad had a blower on one of his Harleys when I was little. Used to bust the britches off of sport bikers. He eventually sold it because of how dangerous it was potentially and went back to an old Panhead.
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I keep multiple cans of “you will start” and very seldom have to pull more than 2 times on all my small motors.
The only exception is for Honda or Predator, choke em and they start 1st or 2nd pull, never need the juice.
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