Anyone know about the MOT requirement on brake pipes?

I was planning on running all the pipes (brake and clutch) through the tunnel of the Coupe. Is this legal, or do they need to be on the outside of the car, so that they can be inspected?

I've never had any trouble with this arrangement - it's used on a lot of rally cars to protect the lines from damage. MOT rules say that if the item can't be inspected without removing a permanently fixed object (Carpet) then it should be assumed to be ok.

Cheers,

That is what I needed to know. It makes sense to have all the fuel, brake and clutch lines all in board, so that they don't suffer from corrosion, but I wasn't sure of the view point of the testers.

The old VW bettles had the front rear brake pipe inside the vehicle running down the "transmission" tunnel and the fuel pipe ran inside the "tunnel" so no worries for you on that score.

They'll only be protected from corrosion if your car doesnt let in the rain. Otherwise damp carpet will make it worse. My last MM leaked like a sieve an ruined all of the pipes (And the seat runners) pretty quickly.

I fixed a couple of lengths of plastic drainpipe into the tunnel to use as conduits. (The black pipes)




It made it easy to thread the brake lines, cables and wiring through to the rear and stops them getting tangled with the gearchange.

No worries with running them in the tunnel myself, only worry on my mot is when we go out to use the telepy meter for teh brake test as i always catchout the tester on both acceleration and braking

WEST

All my brake pipes fuel, clutch, heater and radiator pipes go down the tunnel. Abolutely nothing sticks out below the floor. MOT testers seem happy with that and only seem to check on what they can see. Therefore where the brake pipes for example emerge into the engine bay at say the rear of the tunnel they seem very keen that they do not rub and chafe against anything which may cause them to wear by abrasion, they like to see the pipes secured say every foot or so, particularly where they go around outcropping panel corners to avoid any of the aforementioned embarassments. So if things visible are sensibly fixed there should be no problems.
Malc Jones

Regarding the brake pipes comming form the the master cylinder (excuse my ignorance as i don't yet have a full build manual) do you all run into Two 3 way spilters then off to the the brake or into a 4 way spilter, as i seem to have a large amount of 3 way spiliters on my braking circuit. when ONE 4 way would be sufficient

It depends on what master cylinder you are using:

If single cylinder like most of us, you have one 3 way tee near the master cylinder, and one line to the back, where it then tees off again (On a mini, the pressure compenasating valve). The other line goes around the front, the front right hand side pipe joint acting as the tee, and the mount for the pressure brakelight switch if you're using one.

I have four 3 way junctions.

I have one mounted close to the master cylinder specifically to mount the brake light switch away from all the road Toffee.



I have one mounted on the front bulkhead splitting the front and rear circuits.

I have one on each subframe splitting the circuits to the O/S and N/S wheels.