Club 80-90 Forums

I was driving home in my 1988 DG and at a roundabout the brake pedal went straight to the floor. I foolhardyly managed to limp home and took it to a garage. The garage is in our village. We’ve had it worked on there before and trusted.

I’d already identified that the failure was the hard line from the brake hose to the caliper on the driver front disc brake. They replaced this, pressurised up the system and the hardline on the passenger front disc brake also failed. They inspected the whole system and believe it is corroded throughout. They highly recommend that we replace all the hoses and lines now to ensure that it didn’t fail when it’s been driven.

Obviously they don’t know the extent of some of this work or what they’ve got to do to move things out of the way, ie the fuel tank, to complete the work. They’ve give me an absolute top limit of £1500.

Does this seem realistic? Does anyone have an idea about how much this would be expected to cost?


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Always hard to reply to these as garage prices vary, my garage is at £60 an hour incl vat but do me a deal as they know I know my way round stuff, very important

If your unhappy with the quote try asking elsewhere, I've just done that for a new window at my house, I know nothing about window prices !

So at £1500, allowing a generous £200 on parts that's 21 hours, 2 and a half days full labour

Don't forget they have a business to run and that's fair enough, compared to a DIYer they offer convenience and a drive in/drive out service that you pay for, no screaming

Looking at it as if you had to do it yourself, rough prices are

Brake fluid 5l £20
Brake hoses and fittings, maybe £40
Brake pipe flaring tool, including pipe and fittings £40
Tank hose, Sir Adventure does a great article £20







These are very simple mechanically, I've just fitted a manual pedal cluster to my 'velle and its as basic as they come. Just needed a helper to bleed the system

Remember they will be replacing like for like so the pipe shapes are there to copy, cut the old ones off, remake and refit. Best way, as you can use a socket instead of a slipping spanner on the ends

Tank takes 30mins to get out and back in lying on my back, I've done 2 and are incredibly easy, just make sure you empty it as much as you can

Can you do the job yourself? How good are you at removing rusty siezed up parts lying on your back? If you can service a van then you can probably do this

It is literally as easy as I say, undo a screw in part, screw in another. Rubber flexi hose first, the the metal line as the ends turn as they tighten up, don't do the metal end first!

If it's beyond you then you'll have to pay up unless you know someone that'll help you

Hope all this helps

Thats an over the top quote for this job, its actually easier to remove the whole brake line system than just replacing several pieces, ive done this twice ,dont bother trying to undo the pipe ends just cut them off. I made my own set up in cupro nickel then when that van rusted away i removed that set and used it on another van. There is no need to remove the fuel tank as there is access through the middle. Brake line sets are available so  no need to make the set from scratch and i would replace the larger clutch pipe lines at the same time.  This is a one day job for the garage as long as they have all the parts they need.

Thanks so much guys.
Given time and patience I probably could do but I’m short on both . £1500 was an absolute top quote based on not really knowing what was involved or how much buggering with corrosion was needed.

I’m fairly confident in them. They are the village garage and I’ve helped them in the past with council matters.

Your advice might help them approach in a tried and tested manner. So many thanks again.


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