Brake pipe fittings

[claude van rouge]

Does anybody know if a 1990 French 4TL would have none standard brake pipe fittings? Our Blanche is at the garage at the moment having new rear brake pipes fitted and they say that the fitting is not standard (the standard 10mm or 3/8 they've tried are loose in the female fitting)

Perhaps being French she's a bit different :roll:

Chris

 

[malcolm]

Do you know which fitting they are having problems with? I've never come across a R4 that didn't use either metric or imperial.

One thing that might catch them out is the front to back pipe. That can be metric at one end and imperial at the other. From memory the imperial fitting has a larger diameter thread than the metric fitting.

 

[claude van rouge]

I'm not totally sure which pipes - I will question them further tomorrow - but they did say rear pipes with male fittings so possibley the flexible pipe to drum.

When I rang them earlier this evening they did say they had tried 10mm and 3/8 and that neither was a tight fit, they also didn't think it was a worn component as they had tried each end (if that makes sense).

You would have thought they would have some sort of calipers or something to measure the old fitting.

Sorry no more info at the moment - thanks for your help so far.

Chris

 

[malcolm]

If it's Bendix brakes (Frederick has an identification guide) then it'll be imperial at the back, but probably metric at the front.

The metric fittings that I buy normally have a gold coloured plating, and the imperial fittings normally have a silver colour plating. I've a feeling that's some kind of standard. I wonder whether your mechanic has picked up a batch of wrong coloured fittings. Easy to check if they have female fittings - the imperial won't fit the metric fitting, and the metric fitting rattles inside the imperial fitting.

EDIT> Got it all wrong - the metric fitting (gold coloured) seems to be bigger than the imperial fitting (silver).

 

[claude van rouge]

I wonder whether your mechanic has picked up a batch of wrong coloured fittings

I thought it may be something like that but they assured me that they had tried all their usual stock fittings - it does sound odd though.

Chris

 

[malcolm]

On some of the later TLs the flexy hose bolted straight onto the proportioning valve. That had a larger fitting - clutch size I think, though could be a weird pipe fitting.

 

[claude van rouge]

I think the problem is now sorted - no problem with the car just the garage.

To test the fitting they had been trying to fit the old (3/8) male fitting into a new 10mm fitting and found it was loose. :roll: :roll: :roll:

Anyway I explained about possibility of 3/8 fittings to the head mechanic (who had been away for a few days) - he found some fittings (3/8) tried them and low and behold they worked.

Couldn't they just have used the old male nuts they had taken off :?

Hopefully Blanche should be MOT'd and on the road by tonight.

Thanks for your help Clem

Chris

PS She's passed her MOT (at last)