Need a NEW prop valve

Since my rear disc swap, the prop valve has seeped. I've tightened the flare nuts to near failure, pulled them apart, fiddled and re-tightened to near failure. I've re-sealed the prop valve and variously filed away at the sealing flares. I have succeeded only in worsening the seepage into outright leakage. I need to re-do the whole mess, replacing the sealing flares and the prop valve. I'm not super excited about installing another used prop valve, so that leaves me searching the aftermarket for a universal/adjustable valve. My only problem is that I don't know what to get. I haven't seen anything that has two inlets and four outlets and am not sure what line size they have. Does anyone have any experience with this who can help me out? What aftermarket prop valve would work with our cars?

I went through this on my old Samurai. In my case the lines were kinda messed up too so I ended up replacing a few of those as well. But for the valve I used on of these:

Wilwood High-Performance Disc Brakes - MasterCylinder No: 260-11179

It only has 3 outputs (2 front, 1 rear) so you will need a splitter for the rear lines. This also means that the system will be split front to back instead of front/rear-left/right cross. The brakes will work just the same, but if you ever had some kind of line failure you would lose either the front or the rear, instead of one front and the opposite rear. You could argue that the crossing system is a bit safer but in reality if you lose a brake line it's probably going to be bad anyway, so the difference is mostly academic. If you really wanted to maintain the stock split setup you could get two adjustable simple prop valves (1 in, 1 out) and a couple splitters and connect them with the sides swapped for the rears. The downside here is that you would have a separate adjustment for each rear brake, which means they would have to be adjusted the same. The adjustment wouldn't be that hard since the rear brakes don't do that much anyway, but it would also require a bit more plumbing.

The other thing about the WIlwood valve is that the threads are 3/8-24 instead of M10x1.0. The lines themselves are exactly the same size so you just need to use the correct flare nuts. The flares are also the standard double flare so no issues there.

Now since the new valve is a different shape than the old valve the new lines may not reach, especially since you'll have to cut the stock lines back for the new flare nuts and flares. So you may end up replacing some of the stock lines. This IS a PITA but I found that using the new NICOPP type brake line made this a little better because it's easier to bend. It can be bent mostly by hand although it does work harden so you can't bend it too many times. It's also softer so it flares easier.


It ended up being a lot of work but I'm glad I did it. In the process I also converted the rear to discs which has it's own benefits.


C|

Dude, that is exactly what I needed. This board is so good!

I sorta filed the flares on the hard lines in all my fiddling, which made it all much worse. So I have to replace the lines anyway. I'm not very excited about pulling the cabin apart to replace the lines going to the back, so my plan is to cut off a few inches at the prop valves and splice in new sections with double-flare unions. With some luck it should work out. Then comes the weeks and weeks of adjusting, obsessing, adjusting, obsessing...

Where do I find a splitter?

i believe that civic or integra prop valves are the same 40/40. might not bolt up to stock location though

Any ideas what years? I'm not excited about putting another 25 year old prop valve on the car.

I have been looking at the Wilwood Proportioning Valve for my Scout as well but I have never used it.The rears have always locked before the fronts with no top on it. Sounds like with a lot of plumbing it could work for your car snooze.

Metric inverted flare brake line tees are seriously hard to find and I'm not sure why. I think I got mine from a local hydraulics shop, but these guys have them too:

http://www.lowrangeoffroad.com/suzuki/samurai/brakes/universal-brake-line-tees.html

You might find one at the local parts store but it's hit or miss whether they'll have a metric one (M10x1.0). You could of course use a 3/8-24 tee instead as long as you use the same size flare nuts.

C|