Speaking from scary experience!
I have an early MK chassis with a feeble bulkhead(search showed up they are thicker now) and it was flexing so badly under heavy braking that it caused the solid copper pipe to fracture at the flared end. Guess its like when you keep bending a paperclip and snap. Anyway this happened to me coming off the M62 and luckily i managed to avoid the worst!
Healthy bracing now installed and undies washed!
Thought it was worth a mention anyway to save the worst for others regardless of what they are building

Cheers James

i have a 3mm ali plate either side of mine

James,

Useful piece of information for people.

Was it on the westbound Hudds junction that has the really sharp bend on the short slip road?! That would have made you shed a nugget as it has caught me out before.

Steve

You missed the other key aspect of the failure.

Copper pipe work & age hardens and becomes brittle, next stage is "season" cracking or fatigue failure.

For this reason no volume manufacturer has used copper brake or fuel pipe anywhere on vehicle since the 1930s.

Brake and fuel pipes should always be either steel "Bundy" or "Kunifer".

i noticed that my bulkhead flexes today whist bleeding the brakes, not looking good, think i need to put a plate or two there aswell.

My early MK also has paper thin bulkhead.

The flex, causes the brake reservoir to move forward and then be fouled by the steering column UJ. There's a steel angle strengthener below the MC, but it's too low to help.

Also tried to stiffen up with ali plate, not great but better (don't have facilies to use steel and put hole in for pedal controls)

Difficult to put strengthener across as the pedals get in the way.

A friend put an adjustable steel rod up against the bulk head, under tension to stop it from flexing.

I've prevented fouling with a remote reservoir, but created myself more troubles.

Definitely a job to be prevented at build rather than after.

sorry for late reply!

Steve it was westbound at brighouse so lesser of the evils!

britishtrident fair point and im currently investigating braided ptfe flexible hoses from a local specialist

James

[Edited on 14/5/08 by Jimbob]