How to install Techna-Fit Stainless Steel Brake Lines

These instructions are detailed to swapping brake lines to stainless steel. Techna-Fit Brake line can be bought at http://www.brakeswap.com .. if you have purchased other types of brake lines, you can still use this walk-through, with a few exceptions pertaining to using which tool on your new particular lines.

 

Hope you all have the basics of the simple rule of "Left Loose, Right Tight" when it comes to working on a car. Take all garage/installtion precautions, such as wearing eye protection and use your head when it comes to working around the car, especially one that is off the ground. Brake Fluid is harmful to painted surfaces, do not allow any part of the brake fluid touch the body of the car. I'll get to the point, here are the tools that you will need for the job:

 

-10mm flare-nut wrench

-10mm deep socket ratchet

-12mm deep socket ratchet

-8mm combination wrench

-10mm combination wrench

-12 mm combination wrench

-17mm combination wrench

-9/16 combination wrench

-11/16 combination wrench

-Flathead screwdrivers

-Needle nose pliers

-4 jackstands

-1 jack

-2 bottles of 500mL Motul Brake fluid (or 1 litre of brake fluid of your choice)

-Funnel

-Paper Towels

-Latex Gloves

-Can of Liquid Wrench/PB Blaster or any other anti-seize spray

-Brake Cleaner Spray

-Oil drain pan OR newspaper

 

and if I miss anything, then you can PM me to put it up here for a list of tools to have up here.

 

1) Jack up the car so that you can have all the wheels off the ground. This will also be easier for 4-caliper bleeding when you are done with the installation of the lines. This also helps with understanding how the lines installed if you mess something up, you'll have easy access to the other side of the car for reference.

http://img478.imageshack.us/img478/6984/img00258yb.jpg

 

2) Remove wheels off the car, clean neccessary areas with brake cleaner and spray the connectors with Liquid Wrench.. lay out the new brake lines out and count the parts to make sure you got everything in the package

http://img478.imageshack.us/img478/5017/img00307me.jpg

3) Starting with the front, take off the brake line off the front shock using a 12mm ratchet.

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/147/img00364df.jpg

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/8818/img00338cl.jpg

 

4) Remove the retaining clip between the chassis bracket and the hard line. The clip slides out and away from the brake line. You may use a screw driver to pry it out or use a pair of pliers to pull it out.

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/4823/img00323ss.jpg

5) Using a 17mm open end wrench, slide and hold the brake line's flange piece, it's actually a 17mm wrench that can slip over the two flat spots you see there in the last pic. Place the oil pan or newspaper under neath as once you loosen the coupler the brake fluid will come out, it will also come out of the caliper as well, so use a big wide pan or lots of newspaper.

 

6) Use a 10mm flare nut wrench (shown here above) to loosen the hard line coupler from the brake line.. you should be able to use the 17mm wrench and 10mm flare nut wrench together to break apart that tough joint.

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/5481/img00435li.jpg

7) If you have a hard time using the 17mm open end wrench, use a Vice Grip with caution and pinch the brake line coupler to undo the connection.

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/3992/img00428cp.jpg

 

8) Once you undo the brake line from the chassis hard line, now you can unhook the rest of the brake line from the caliper using a 12mm close end wrench. The bolt will have two washers, one on each side of the banjo bolt.

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/1153/img00348pd.jpg

9) Now it's time to put the new brake line in. Adjust the new Techna-Fit front brake line strut clip to the correct length by sliding it.

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/139/img00451qe.jpg

 

10) Place the two new copper washers between the new banjo bolt. Use a 9/16" Wrench to tighten the banjo bolt onto the caliper.

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/1265/img00442fw.jpg

11) Route the brake line in the same path as the stock brake line. Using an open 11/16" open wrench, connect the other end of the brake line to the chassis hard line and use the same flare nut wrench together to tighten the coupler together. Use the newly supplied retainer clips (on the left) and slide the clip back onto the chassis bracket.

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/5017/img00527xg.jpg

 

12) Once you have the retaining clip in, it should be flush. Use a pair of pliers if you have to push it back into the collar of the brake line shown below. Bolt back up the brake line bracket to the shock body and now you are done with the front. Repeat the process for the other side of the car.

http://img483.imageshack.us/img483/2189/img00510cd.jpg

13) The rear is basically the same thing as the front, only there is no bolt that holds the brake line to the shock body, instead, the brake line is coupled with a small hard line in between the two which is held with along the control arm. http://img464.imageshack.us/img464/5474/img00375cm.jpg

 

14) Remove the three retaining clips (one on each end of the hard brake line and one for the hard line coming from the chassis). You can use a pair of pliers or a screw driver as a pry bar to slide the retainers out.

http://img464.imageshack.us/img464/4826/img00409ih.jpg

15) Follow the same process as the front brake lines to undo the couplers. Slide the catch pan to catch all the brake fluid that will be coming out of the lines or line the floor with a lot of newspaper.

 

16) Unbolt the last connection of the brake line from the caliper using a 12mm wrench and watch for 2 washers that are associated with the stock banjo bolt (as you don't want to put the new washers and new banjo bolt onto the caliper, you might have a chance of having too many washers and may cause a leak), follow the same procedure/directions above as the front brake lines.

17) Once the brake lines are off, it's time to install the new lines.. follow the same procedure as the front brake lines. Also route the new brake lines the same way as stock.. you should have plenty of slack for the rear brake lines coming from the caliper with the new revised lines as shown here:

http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/5315/img00494qg.jpg

 

18) Make sure and check all connections are tight enough and place all the new retainer clips on the original positions as the stock ones were located.. remember to make sure that they are flush as shown in step # 12.

19) Clean the areas and connections with brake cleaner.

 

20) Now you can continue on to bleed the brakes accordingly. The front stock caliper uses 10mm wrench while the rear stock calipers uses 8mm wrench for the bleeder valves. Bleed appropriately (there are various ways to bleed, so do a search on how to bleed brakes).. watch for any leaks, make sure your brake resevoir have plenty of fluid to prevent air being sucked into the system.

 

DONE.

Nice writeup Keefe! This will certainly help a few members out. Pics are always helpful, where word descriptions sometimes aren't enough!

Thanks for the writeup Keefe! Lookin good!

Now for a small write-up on what you think of the lines installed. Can you feel the difference? Does it make a difference?

Now for a small write-up on what you think of the lines installed. Can you feel the difference? Does it make a difference?

 

It will be posted in the Brake forums. But to sum it up:

 

A) Yes, it's "more sensitive"

 

B) It only makes a difference in your pedal input.. it's a shorter pedal travel. I would say it just cut down the pedal effort by as much as 30% for daily driving...

Fantastic report Keefe, thats fantastic.

Now because I sort of got lost at the first pic (not yr fault but mine), I will be leaving this up to the boys @ STi as I just dont want them feeling that Im leaving them out by doing this myself......lol.

Thanks again mate, Im sure a lot of our members will benefit from the well layed out instructions.

Ada///M.

I am still waiting to install mine. Plus I will throw in some synthetic brake fluid while I am doing the job.

I am still waiting to install mine. Plus I will throw in some synthetic brake fluid while I am doing the job.

 

Aren't all brake fluid synthetic?? What do you plan on using, Castrol SRF?

Great write-up, Keefe!

 

Reading through this thread reminds me of my very first brake-job, being under the guidance of my car-wise buddy. Awesome walk-through.

I planned on using this:

 

http://img438.imageshack.us/img438/729/motul2ab.jpg

I did two cars.. One was easy.. The other one, brakes are all soft (Nearly the same as stock feel) despite bleeding through a whole 32oz bottle of fluid. What gives? Master Cylinder needs to be bled? If you run enough fluid through the system shouldn't it clear it out anyway? *sigh* I hope it's not a defective line that's ballooning somewhere. No apparent fluid loss yet..

I did two cars.. One was easy.. The other one, brakes are all soft (Nearly the same as stock feel) despite bleeding through a whole 32oz bottle of fluid. What gives? Master Cylinder needs to be bled? If you run enough fluid through the system shouldn't it clear it out anyway? *sigh* I hope it's not a defective line that's ballooning somewhere. No apparent fluid loss yet..

 

You sure the master cylinder never got empty or close to empty at any point during the bleeding process?

 

What was your bleeding process?

if your master cylinder ran dry during the bleeding process, that means you also sucked up some air into the lines, you might have to keep bleeding while keeping the master cylinder resevoir full to get the air bubbles out from the bleeders per corner...

You sure the master cylinder never got empty or close to empty at any point during the bleeding process?

 

What was your bleeding process?

 

Got down around MIN once, but never empty. Replace one line at a time and bleed, RF/LR LF/RR, brakes still soft, bleed brakes again, no difference.

 

So before I waste another bottle of fluid, will bleeding the whole system again make sure the master cylinder is clear? The service manual says to disconnect the lines from it, bleed it, and then bleed all the brakes.

 

... so what about the ABS unit? Anybody have problems with air bubbles in it?

Got down around MIN once, but never empty. Replace one line at a time and bleed, RF/LR LF/RR, brakes still soft, bleed brakes again, no difference.

 

So before I waste another bottle of fluid, will bleeding the whole system again make sure the master cylinder is clear? The service manual says to disconnect the lines from it, bleed it, and then bleed all the brakes.

 

... so what about the ABS unit? Anybody have problems with air bubbles in it?

 

I know with my M3.. if air gets trapped in the ABS unit it will stay there... so we have to bleed w/ the ignition on. But I am not sure how the ABS unit works in the Subaru. Also, if you pump the pedal really hard and fast during bleeding, you can agitate the bubbles in there and it will make it harder to get it all out...

I changed all the lines first before bleeding.. you can have air trapped in the hard lines as well in your new lines AND your calipers. I would definitely check your master cylinder as well to see if there's crap floating in the resevoir.. it's possible to have floating deposits and it getting all blocked up in the lines... do a really good flush.