Bit of a long-winded post here, but it may be of interest to Australian forum members looking for brake hoses.
I had a long chat on the phone with John Stamnas in Queensland today.
http://www.johnstamnas.com.au/
He gave me some prices on different options for the brake hoses I need, a lot of information about brakes and hoses, and talked a lot of crap about bikes in general. He seems an OK bloke with a genuine interest in bikes. He said he's doing (or has done) the brake lines for one of the track bikes that Drmsby rides. I'm guessing that's Ian's Monty.
We talked about zinc, chrome and stainless fittings, compression vs crimped fittings. Getting him to make the hoses vs buying the bits and making them myself. I won't go into the specific prices for my hoses because he offered me a pretty good deal to do 16 separate hoses (for 4 bikes), but here's a few general comments.
He uses Goodridge hose and fittings from UK. He can use Hel components if anyone asks for them, but they're made in China and are poorer quality than Goodridge. There is some debate in the industry as to whether they're actually ADR compliant. (for our non Australian brethren, ADR = Australian Design Rules - the code for vehicle standards in Australia, similar to TUV in Germany)
Price for the fittings in escalating order are zinc, chrome and stainless. Chrome is about $5 per hose more than zinc, stainless about $15 per hose more than chrome.
He advised not to consider alloy fittings. While OK under the ADR's, they can snap off if your bike falls over and the fitting cops a clout.
Buying DIY components and building your own hoses saves about $15 per hose. But the hose is non ADR approved and you may get an unroadworthy sticker slapped on your bike if a sharp-eyed cop notices.
He's been warned by transport authorities that cops are being briefed on how to recognise non compliant hoses, at least in the eastern states (seems they don't care in WA). He's getting an increasing number of customers coming to him for new hoses after they've been pinged for non-compliance.
Compression fittings are not approved even if fitted with an ADR tag showing that they've been assembled and pressure tested by a licenced brake fitter. They're just as reliable as the crimped fittings but the bureaucrats don't like them, possibly because any half-wit can use them to build a hose. He learned that the hard way in the early days of his business and copped a fine for putting ADR tags on them.
He won't sell the ADR approval collar separately for DIY hoses. He can be fined a big heap of money and lose his trading licence if he gets caught doing that.
He made the interesting comment that (in Australia) you can use home-made or rubbish components for every other part of the brake system except the hoses. You can make your own calipers out of wood, assemble them with PVA glue and bolt them on with whitworth coach bolts if you want to, so long as they have approved hoses! Cables for cable operated brakes are also un-regulated. Idiot bureaucrats strike again!
He also made the observation that the original hoses fitted to most imported bikes are not ADR approved because they don't have a PTFE outer sheath. PTFE is required on motorcycles in sunny Australia for UV resistance (but not cars because their hoses are not usually in direct sunlight). Many imported bikes have a polyurethane or some other plastic sheath. Apparently they get away with it by calling them ADR compliant rather than ADR approved or some such semantic nonsense. Oddly enough, bare stainless braid without any sheath is OK - if you can work that paradox out you're smarter than me.
I've also had an email exchange with Motamec in UK. They sell hose kits for many different bikes. Their prices are quite reasonable, and they can do ADR/TUV approval. But when I asked for specifics about hose lengths and fitting types, it turned out that none of their "Laverda" hose kits would be direct bolt-on replacements for the bikes I was working on. Their kits use non-standard fittings. As an example, their kit for the 3C replaces the original steel pipe from the caliper to just behind the fork leg. The replacement hose goes from splitter to caliper, discarding the steel section (I suppose there's arguments for and against that). In some cases they use banjo fittings where the originals were straight threaded, so the hoses exit the caliper or splitter at different angles. I prefer to stick with the original hose configuration, the angles are right and the hoses lay in nice large radius curves. They don't sell custom hoses - only the pre-made kits.
Another option I explored was getting the local brake and clutch shop to make up some hoses. I even took in some sample hoses and plonked them on the counter. They didn't have the right fittings, and didn't seem at all interested in getting them in. There is another local guy in Hobart who makes up motorcycle brake hoses and does a very nice job with quality components. He made the hoses for my Ducati a few years ago. But he's slow, expensive and a prick to deal with. Last time I was there I criticised his lousy service. He spat the dummy and chucked me out of his shop, telling me to never to come back.
Anyway, for me and other folks for whom I'm trying to source hoses. We've decided not to pursue the DIY hoses just to save $15 per hose. It's probably worth that much for the ADR compliance tags you get with the shop-made hoses. Might be a different story for a track bike.
After much head scratching and weighing up options, the decision is that I'll be sending a bunch of hoses to John Stamnas, and he'll do copies of them with ADR approval tags.
Cheers,
Cam
), so he's probably not selling them at the moment.
