(engine revving)
- Last time we went to the desert
it became quickly apparent that the e-brake in the E36
wasn't gonna work with me.
I couldn't get my hand on it in time.
So the question became, what do we do about it?
We fix it, we fix the whole thing.
(engine revving)
(screaming) (lightning flashes)
(playful music)
Huge thanks to eBay Motors for sponsoring today's video.
From experienced car enthusiasts
to first-time Money Pitters,
there's no better place to buy and sell your parts and cars
than eBay Motors.
Not only do they focus
on a diversity of people and inventory,
but they're also focused on putting trust
into the automotive marketplace.
eBay Motors also allows you to ship directly through the app
and you can even request a licensed third party inspector
to inspect the car you're interested in.
Plus, with features like the vehicle protection program,
and eBay's fitment to guarantee your exact parts,
you don't have to worry about getting scammed,
which is really nice.
So, start your trustworthy car shopping experience today
by going to the link in the description below.
And heck, you can get yourself a sick E36 like we did
on eBay Motors.
Now, let's get back to the Money Pit.
(playful music)
All right, so as a quick reminder,
we bought this 98 BMW E36.
It's a 328i, and the AC actually still works.
But we've been modifying it to be
a fun budget-minded off-road rally inspired car.
Now, of course you can drive
a stock car off-road to some success,
but we want this thing to be better than that.
We want it to look better than that,
we want it to be much more reliable than that.
So we've been installing and testing
different rally inspired modifications,
and determining whether or not
they've been worth all the time, money,
and effort they take to install.
And today is no different,
we're gonna be doing now the hydraulic e-brake.
So, let's get into it.
If you watch any footage
of professional rally or drift drivers,
you'll often see him grabbing
for a lever that isn't the shifter
when they initiate a slide, that's a hydraulic e-brake.
And all that does is allow them to lock up the rear tires,
and initiate a spin or a rotation of the car.
Now in drifting,
that's usually about steez and looking good,
but in rally, it can often be the quickest way
to get around a corner,
especially like a hairpin turn.
When you're driving on dirt,
you really don't have that much grip.
And so if you just try to steer a really tight corner,
you'll usually end up under steering,
you kind of plow straight through.
So the easiest way to remedy that is by installing
a way to easily and repeatedly lock up your rear wheels,
so you can initiate spin on command.
So, that's what we're gonna do,
that's what the E36 needs.
Now, let's go take a look at what I bought.
I actually honestly kind of bought the wrong thing.
(chuckling)
But it's gonna work.
All right, so let's look at what we got and what you need
if you wanna install a hydro e-brake in your car.
First off the tools.
We've got a flaring kit, so we can flare some brake lines.
And then of course, we've got some brake line.
On the E36, 3/16, that's what they use or 4.75 millimeters,
so that's what this is.
And then we've got an assortment of flare nuts
that we'll flare onto the tube.
These are how you connect brake lines.
And so that all should be pretty easy.
But the main thing you need, the piece de resistance,
is the hydro itself.
And this is where I bought the wrong thing.
At first glance when I bought this,
probably really late at night,
it seemed really cool.
I was like, oh wow, twin cylinder
so you don't have to tee it after the fact,
you just run your single line into the hydro,
and then you can run out to each individual rear caliper.
But that's not what this is at all.
This is actually a cutting break.
This is more for off-roading.
So you can lock up an individual rear wheel
and force the thing to kind of spin around that
to turn tightly.
I think it's gonna be okay.
We're just gonna plug one of the cylinders,
and use the upper one,
and then tee it off like you normally would
when you install a hydro.
But all in all, it should be not too difficult.
A little time consuming though, so let's get going.
So the first thing we're gonna do
is just kind of sit in here for a minute with the old hydro
and kind of mock it up,
hold it in some different places, see what I think,
keeping in mind I've got some interior bits
that I would like to be able to put back in here.
So, I think it's gonna be something like this.
This thing, as far as I'm concerned, this can go.
So, I think that's gonna go,
and then we're gonna mount something like this.
Maybe build it off a little bit so it's out here.
Cool.
Well, now I need to go
look at what kind of metal I have laying around
and cut some up and make a little bracket.
It should it be pretty easy with the tools I have on hand,
I'm just basically gonna make a little shelf
for this thing to sit on,
I think we go to something like this.
And that should be plenty sturdy and pretty easy.
Let's do it.
(groans) (metal clanging)
Just chop a little piece out of somewhere over here.
All right, I gotta get the plasma cutter ready,
which means I need some air pressure and the plasma cutter.
So I'm about to plasma cut this eighth inch steel,
which is pretty convenient for me
because plasma cutting is pretty easy,
it's pretty quick way to get through metal.
But it's definitely not the only way to get through metal.
You could make this bracket with just an angle grinder
with a cutoff wheel on it, potentially a sawzall, bandsaw,
there's a lot of ways to get this done,
not just a plasma cutter.
The plasma cutters are pretty cheap these days,
so if you do cut a lot of metal,
maybe think about picking one up.
It's really handy and super fun to use.
You're basically cutting metal with fire,
and that's, I mean,
I think we can all agree that it's pretty cool.
So let's do it, let's cut some.
(groans)
(upbeat music) (plasma cutter whistling)
Okay, major piece cut.
We'll clean it up a little bit on the old sander
once it cools down.
(upbeat music) (sander buzzing)
(metal clanging)
All right, it's not this was very difficult,
I just had to cut out a little rectangle,
and now we've got one cut out.
And it looks like it's gonna do exactly what we want.
I think what I'm gonna do is weld some studs
to this rectangle we just cut
so that I can just mount this thing with nuts
and not have to worry about getting any hardware underneath
'cause in at least one spot,
that would be a really tricky.
Okay, so I think I'm gonna drill four holes
where I marked my spots for the e-brake.
Drill holes about six millimeters in size,
pop these bolts through,
cut the heads off, weld them,
and then I have four studs.
(metal clanging)
Cool.
Now, we just grind those welds flush
so it sits nice on the tunnel,
then I got a couple of holes cut out
for just like little spot welds,
and we'll weld kind of the perimeter a little bit as well.
Should be plenty sturdy,
we'll see if we even need to brace it.
(grinder buzzing) (upbeat music)
Okay.
Now, we just gotta get rid of some paint in that area
and then we can weld.
Coming right along.
(grinder buzzing)
Oh yeah, I think that's gonna be it.
(welding machine buzzing)
Oh yeah!
Now that is sturdy.
It's not going anywhere.
Cool.
Now we can run some lines.
(upbeat music)
All right, now we got the car in the air.
So now it's time to trace our lines
from the master cylinder to the rear calipers.
So we're gonna find the line
that comes from the master and goes to the rears.
The rear line, the singular rear line
comes out of the master and just goes straight
into like the ABS traction control module.
So, to get to the individual line,
to run to the e-brake like I want to,
I'm actually just gonna bypass ABS
and traction control altogether,
which for the rear wheels, especially, it's fine by me.
So I'm just gonna remove this line here
that comes out of the port on the master cylinder labeled H.
H is rear and V is front.
So I'm gonna remove the line that's going to the H port,
that goes ultimately to the rears.
So remove that and then I'll make a new line
that just goes down, bypasses ABS and traction control,
and goes into the cabin right behind the handbrake.
And I think I have all the fittings that I need to do this.
So, let's do it.
So, I've got this straight piece of line.
This is six millimeter tubing with M12 by one fittings here,
with a bubble flare, a DIN/ISO flare.
This is the European way,
this a metric piece of brake tubing
in that it's metric tubing, metric fitting,
and the bubble flare is metric too.
Generally, there's two major types of flares;
there's bubble and then there's standard.
Most American things will get standard,
most of European things will get bubble.
So that's what we have here.
So this will be the piece from the master cylinder
to kind of underneath the car,
and then we'll make a line
from underneath the car to inside the car.
Now they do have,
they do make specific tools
for bending brake lines and small tubing,
and when you know it, I don't have one.
So, we're just gonna do it by hand
with stuff we have laying around.
I've got some dies right here
that are of different diameters.
So, I can use these and just trying to keep even pressure,
trying to make sure not to kink these things,
I'll just do it by hand
and we should be able to turn out a decent result.
And then maybe down the road,
I'll get the right tool, you know.
(upbeat music)
(paper crumpling)
Woo! Line.
This is 3/16, which is also usable in metric
because metrics step below a six millimeter line
is a 4.76 millimeter line.
And 3/16 is 4.75 millimeters.
This stuff bends real nice,
so I'm just gonna feed it through my hole.
(line whistling)
Satisfying.
All right, so now that we've got our length figured out,
we can remove the whole line
once I cut through it with my tubing cutter.
And then we take it to the bench and flare it.
This comes with a flaring kit,
it's a little chamfering tool.
So we're just gonna hit that in there,
get them burrs off.
Now, before your flare,
don't forget your flare nut or your tube nut.
This has to go on first because once you flare the end,
it can't come off this way.
Now sure, if you only flare one end,
you can get it on from the other side,
but don't live that life.
Don't live like that.
Put it on first, remember, then flare.
Trust me, it's way more fun that way.
Like I said earlier, this has a BMW,
so on this car is a bubble flare.
But the adapter I'm using to go into the handbrake
is gonna be a standard 3/16.
So on this end, we'll do a standard flare,
on this end, we'll do a bubble flare.
I just have to remember that.
So, the first thing I'm gonna do
is insert our tubing through this little grippy block here,
these two Allens tighten down to grip the tube.
The tube needs to protrude through this little block,
a pretty specific amount.
So you wanna line it up,
I want it to be sticking out the same amount
as the height of that largest diameter bit.
So now this is our bubble die,
this is for this size tubing
and it's meant to make a bubble flare.
So that's gonna go in there like that.
Now we're gonna screw this unit
over top of the whole situation.
Okay, now, we just need to drive this screw down in
and that will produce the flare.
Okay, that should do it.
And there we have a bubble flare.
Now, we gotta do a standard flare on this side.
Now we'll drive the top down for our first operation.
Now, that's basically a bubble flare there.
Now we're just gonna screw this back on like so,
and drive this guy in with no die.
Okay, and that is your more standard double flair.
So, that is basically a line made.
We've got a bubble flare here,
a double flare here,
and now we just gotta put it in the old car.
(upbeat music)
Okay, so we've got this little adapter.
This goes from the thread at the back of the handbrake,
the inlet for the handbrake,
to our 3/16 standard tube nut here.
Now, this is NPT or national pipe thread.
That means it's a tapered thread.
So that means it gets thread sealant.
And tapered threads are never going to bottom out
like a standard straight thread fastener.
The threads in that taper is what ultimately stops them
and you can overpower it.
Eddie knows.
All right, now we've got our line
from the master cylinder into the car
and into the handbrake.
And I just plugged off the lower cylinder here
that we're not gonna be using.
Now, it's time to make a line
that goes from the upper cylinder
that we are gonna be using
that will come down and split, it'll tee off,
and then it'll go into the rear calipers.
So that'll get some sealant in a minute,
but for now, just stick it in there.
Okay, so I'm just gonna leave this line a little bit long,
I'll probably put the tee somewhere up in this area,
but I'm just gonna leave extra length
and cut it from the inside and figure that out next.
Okay, so these are factory lines
we're gonna be splicing into.
This one goes to the driver's side,
this one to the passenger's side.
And I'm just gonna cut them,
kind of stagger it and run my tee into those lines
to send hydro power to the rear brakes.
All right, so this is the final piece of the plumbing,
I hope that everything is plumbed up,
and we can put some fluid in it and bleed the thing.
Now, obviously this isn't super difficult,
it's just time-consuming and a little fiddly,
but it's not the worst thing.
It's definitely something that can be done on a weekend,
and depending on your cars set up, potentially even quicker.
This is taking more time because it's individual lines
from the engine bay all the way back.
But if it was a single line that teed off at the rear,
it's even quicker, 'cause you can just go boom,
one line in one line out.
I gotta be on a plane in a few hours,
so really hoping for no leaks.
(wrench buzzing)
Now we bleed.
All right, I'm gonna start by bleeding the hydro,
I'm gonna use my vacuum pump
and pull vacuum on the hydro and all our new lines,
and then pull fluid from our reservoir into all this stuff.
Then I'll also need to bleed the rear calipers.
We'll probably need to foot bleed as well as this,
but, just how it goes.
No leaks, no leaks so far.
All right, listen,
this isn't gonna be your standard brake bleeding procedure.
You've got the pedal, like normal,
but then you also got another master
that you're gonna have to-
- Also be bleeding.
- Yeah, so you'll just,
you'll pump up the brake pedal and hold it like normal,
and then once you're holding that,
then you'll just pull the e-brake all the way and hold it,
then I'll bleed, then I'll tighten, then you'll relax.
(claps)
(Eddie speaking in foreign language)
- All right, pump everything up.
Pedal first then handbrake.
Pump brake pedal and pull the handbrake.
Again.
There we go, we got some fluid coming out.
Okay.
It's in neutral, right?
Put down the standard e-brake
and give me some hydro.
Aye!
- It could definitely be stiffer.
- Yeah, I still got to bleed from in there.
- [Eddie] There's some (indistinct).
- I just wanted to make sure it was working.
All right, we got this sucker bled,
now I'm gonna fire it up
and see if the old stick does anything.
(engine revving)
Okay, foot brake.
Okay, let's see if the hydro works.
Woo!
Well, the new hydro works and that is exciting.
I can't wait to take this thing back out to the desert
and use this thing for real.
It's gonna make it so much more fun.
But unfortunately I don't have time for that today.
In fact, I gotta go get on an airplane.
So that's gonna do it for us today,
I hope you guys had a good time watching this video
and I hope you learned a thing or two.
I'll see you guys next Wednesday
for another episode of Money Pit on the E36,
and in the meantime,
go follow me on Instagram @zackjobe,
and follow Donut @donutmedia.
See you guys in a week.
(upbeat music)